Durakovo sits 100 kilometers southwest of Moscow, and its residents call it the Village of Fools. Mikhail Morozov, a businessman and self-declared patriot, runs the settlement on strict rules that newcomers agree to follow the moment they arrive, giving up their former rights in the process. The film sits in on the semi-private gatherings Morozov leads, where residents discuss Russia's future and their own place in it, and it records him quoting Vladimir Putin directly: "What we have here is a society that respects the vertical of power, this is what our country needs most of all." Political, spiritual, and administrative authority all run through Morozov himself, and the village functions as a working model of the hierarchy he believes Russia should embrace nationwide. Made for the international "Why Democracy" series, the film uses Durakovo as a close-up case study of why democracy has so little pull for some Russians, letting Morozov and his followers make that argument in their own words rather than through outside commentary.