After Artyom and Anna somehow royally screwed up and stole a steam train, you and the rest of the 'spartans' had to fight off Hansa, destroy an armoured train and Alyosha getting shot you all took a moment to celebrate not dying, name the train and plot a route to some mount yamantau where some secret government is alleged to be hiding as per a radio broadcast found by Artyom. Sounds great! The air isn't radioactive out here, and it's peaceful enough. It gets colder by the day, sure, but it's nice. Until.. you reach the volga, hitting a roadblock on the tracks and puncture a cylinder. Luckily, the engineer, an old man named Yermark who also decided to come along, can fix it. It'll just take a while. So.. what now? Miller is busy telling Artyom to fix the problem, sending the Spartans out to find 'nato patrols' (that dont exist), and Yermark fixes everything.

So, you just.. go along with it. After a day or two passed, Artyom brings home a kid and mother, a mechanic, and a guitar for Stephan.