A man tells about his escape from a prison colony somewhere at the farthest end of Siberia at a time when Siberia was the end of the world. Under most difficult circumstances and using the most primitive instruments, he fled through the tajga, crossed mighty rivers, at last Lake Bajkal and returned home. The world he left behind is not really terrible anymore, now that all this is past, and he remembers his old friend, who has helped him to escape, and on his way the peasants and their courageous wives who were always ready to help him with bread and tobacco.