Samuil Ulanovskiy

Near the city of Verny, surrounded by Cossack patrols, the paths of three friends diverge. Instead of his native aul, Nartai finds only ruins. The death of his mother, the disappearance of his fiancée, and the oppression from the stanitsa ataman — all this forces Nartai to join the revolutionary struggle. Hunger and poverty, and pleas for bread greet the blacksmith Azim in his native Zhetysu. A Cossack horse kills Azim’s little son with a kick of its hoof when the boy reaches for scattered grains of bread. Grief turns the blacksmith into the leader of a starving, rebellious crowd. The fate of the third soldier is not easy either. Pavel Zernov, pausing only briefly at the bedside of his dying little son, hastens to rejoin his comrades who have gone underground.

A comedy about Krushchev's 'Virgin Lands' project, to transform the barren and inhospitable spaces of the vast Soviet Union into fertile agricultural plains. A classically Socialist-Realist narrative of an individual's 're-education'. Zhenia, a hapless idler, arrives with a band of enthusiastic young Konsomol members to build a new town in the steppe. Although his dream, like that of all the young participants, is 'to become a tractor driver and a hero', he isn't prepared to work for the honour.

A young, ambitious and self-confident girl, Zulfiya, is appointed senior assistant at the surgical clinic. She is still an inexperienced doctor, and immediately makes a number of serious mistakes. Realizing the lack of personal professionalism and the limited medical practice, Zulfiya refuses a high position and leaves as an ordinary doctor to the mountainous region of Tajikistan.