Akhmed is a Chechen man born and raised in the small village of Eldár. As a young man, Akhmed is given the opportunity to go to medical school and become a doctor. However, Akhmed skips his labs and lectures to attend art classes and graduates at the bottom of his class. Unable to get a position as a physician, Akhmed returns to Eldár and opens a private practice in an abandoned building. Akhmed marries a woman named Ula, who soon becomes bedridden with a sickness Akhmed believes is all in her head.

Akhmed is close friends with Dokka, Ramzan, and Ramzan’s father Khassan. The men often spend their Sundays playing chess together. After the war starts and word gets around that Akhmed is a talented artist, refugees passing through the village begin asking Akhmed to draw portraits of their missing family members. Akhmed also draws portraits of villagers who have been captured by the Feds on plywood boards and hangs them around the village.

During the war, Ramzan takes Dokka to help him transport stolen weapons. Akhmed becomes jealous of the money Dokka is making and of his wife and daughter, since Akhmed and his wife were never able to have children of their own.