The State Historical Museum on Red Square holds objects that outlasted empires, and this film uses them to walk through centuries of Russian history. A cross Ivan the Terrible commissioned in a fit of religious guilt sits alongside the armor of the Polish Winged Hussars, whose cavalry charges once broke Russian lines. Forensic evidence tied to 20,000-year-old child remains raises the question of ritual sacrifice on the steppe, and a battered regimental banner points to a defeat Napoleon's army tried to erase from the record. The film also lingers on an odd artifact of the revolution: Vladimir Lenin's British-built luxury car, a strange fit for a leader who preached the end of aristocratic privilege. Historians and museum curators speak on camera, tracing each object back to the moment it was made or seized, while close-up shots of the artifacts themselves carry as much of the story as the narration. The result is a museum tour built around specific, physical evidence rather than a general survey of Russian history.