San Donato

On the edge of the city of Nizhny Tagil, in the Ural Mountains of Russia, there is a small train station with the name San Donato. A remarkable name for a Russian station. This documentary essay explores the how and the why of this name. Director Baluyev returns to the region where his previous film (2003) depicted the young inhabitants' dead-end daily existence. In addition, he films San Donato in Florence, a former principality that was once bought by the wealthy Russian industrial Demidoff. To this day, street names and a museum villa recall his presence in Italy. The Demidoff Dynasty got rich with the steel industry in the Ural Mountains, which partly explains the name of the Russian train station. Residents and station employees tell about the history of the place and express their daily worries. The life in the Italian town of San Donato is contrasted with the poverty in its Russian namesake, with the greatest common factor between these two intertwined worlds being art, including a lot of classical music and statues from the Renaissance and the Soviet Era.