Wanting to escape a failed relationship, a young Finnish woman boards a train to travel from Moscow to Mongolia. Wanting to be alone, she chooses an empty compartment, but is soon joined by a former soldier who recounts explicit stories of his past.

"A young Finnish woman boards a train in Moscow, in the waning years of the Soviet Union. Bound for Mongolia, she's trying to leave a broken relationship as far behind her as she can. Wanting to be alone, she chooses an empty compartment - No 6. Her solitude is soon shattered by the arrival of a fellow passenger: Vadim Nikolayevich Ivanov, a grizzled, opinionated and foul-mouthed ex-soldier. Vadim fills the compartment with his long and colourful stories, recounting in lurid detail his sexual conquests and violent fights . There is a hint of menace in the air, but while Vadim may be crude, he isn't cruel, and he shares with her the sausage and black bread and tea he's brought for the journey. As their train cuts slowly across a wintery Russia, where 'everything in motion, snow, water, air, clouds, wind, cities, villages, people and thoughts', a grudging kind of companionship grows between the two inhabitants of Compartment No 6. A series of starlit and sinister encounters bring this incantatory story about a ruined but beautiful country to its powerful conclusion."--