Russia, 1926. The Red Terror has reigned for years with secret police, forced labor camps, and executions now a part of everyday life. Stalin's desire for inhuman super soldiers fuels Dr. Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov's obsession with creating a human-ape hybrid—but to horrific ends. When Yuri Grechiko, a member of the state secret police, falls in love with a human experiment from a labor camp, he risks it all by fleeing with her to freedom on the Ural Mountains.