‘Farewell to Matera’ - the story of the flooding of the island for the construction of the Bratsk hydroelectric power station. The village of Matera is destined to sink to the bottom of an artificially created sea - along with the history of entire generations who lived on this land before. Old people come out to defend their small homeland. They cannot come to terms with the destruction of the huts in which they were born and raised, the graves where their ancestors are buried, their native birch and pine trees. After all, where tradition is lost, where a person’s connection with the past, with ancestors, with God is destroyed, is it possible to artificially build ‘‘new life’’ on the ruins of real life?