The 1990s: Amid the chaos of the post-socialist East, East German car mechanic Andreas and Alexej, a border crosser from the former Soviet Union, team up to smuggle German cars into Russia. Among the ruins of their old homeland, they try to build a future for themselves. But the new capitalist game is brutal: West German investors buy up the GDR, corrupt border guards and ruthless gangsters control all the smuggling. Andreas and Alexej are painfully stripped of their naivety and forced to realize that in this world, they never really had a chance.