Aka was the name we created for the first Russian who appeared in our family. For us children, he was some sort of “uncle." He spoke fluently Kyrgyz and worked together with us. Through Aka’s story my film tells the presence of Slavic people — Russians and Ukrainians above all  — in my country, Kyrgyzstan. They appeared a long time ago in Central Asia, starting with the epic of Manas, where they are described as having legs “as long as a minaret,” going by foot, and eating “the dust of the earth.” Interviews of older people in the capital and remote villages are intercut with testimonies by contemporary personalities, such as historians, cultural experts and activists, about the history of Slavic migration in Kyrgyzstan, the colonization of nomadic lands by Cossack and peasant settlers, and Soviet Russian political, cultural and linguistic hegemony. Archival material and what could be gathered from flee markets — photo albums, books, and domestic objects — all speak of what is left of Slavic life and culture today in this country.