The old Tanabai is on his way home to the Kyrgyz mountains with his stallion Gülsary under the night sky. After a tumultuous life, this will be their final journey. Both have grown weary. Like stations along a crossroad, memories of the past emerge—those heated years of construction and the world war, when the steppe was cultivated and a new world was built from the ruins. Remembrances of their celebrations, the equestrian games in which they triumphed together, and their grand and small romances. And then the stations of decline, disappointments, and the uncomprehending officials who put the magnificent stallion on a leash and sent his rider into the mountains. In this novel, Aitmatov gives voice to the strength, lament, and longing of the individual, who takes the course of history into his own hands and becomes its victim once again.