For six months of every year, a ship crisscrosses the Siberian North, bringing medical care to the remotest rural outposts. As the Siberian winter releases its grip, twenty doctors board a floating hospital. During those months, they cover 12,000 kilometers by water and visit 47 townships where they are confronted with a wide range of medical issues. The majority of the medical personnel are women. As the floating clinic pays better than normal clinics, they are willing to leave their families behind for half a year. Their patients wait eagerly for them. The floating clinic is their only chance to be seen by healthcare professionals: the hospitals left from Soviet times are closed and the doctors are gone. When the six months are up, the ship returns to the town of Khanty-Mansiysk. The doctors rush back to normal life. By next spring many will return to the floating hospital.