Solaris in Armenia. At an altitude of 3.500 metres, half-ruined concrete shelters project from Aragaz mountain among snow-covert summits. A pyramid, some strange devices, pipes. Rusty wire rise to the sky - this place is in direct contact with outer space. Once built by the Soviet Union as one of the most ambitious projects of modern space research, there was neither money nor interest in the study of cosmic rays after the country fell apart. A staff of six are holding the fort at the 'High Altitude Scientific Station': forgotten, isolated, unterred, tackling the universe with screw-drivers. In a setting that seems to date from the age of the steam machine, they direct their eyes to the future of mankind.Pulling endless cables (where? what for?), calling commands into a cracking field telephone, helping the women hang up the laundry, staring silently into their evening vodka. Carefully constructed, the film keeps a constant balance between an elegy of forlornness, captured by cinemathographerAlexander Riedel's long travelling shots, and the humour of an omnipresent absurdity. An ode to persistence - even if no one can be absolutely sure that the rest of the world hasn't perished long ago.