Izolda Izvitskaya

A story about three young men - three best friends - and their adventures during the first years of Soviet Union.

The construction of the Vakhsh Canal, one of the largest new buildings of the first five-year plan, is underway. Two Americans are coming here under contract. A seasoned spy, Colonel Bailey, who introduced himself as the harmless traveler Mr. Murry, would later be caught red-handed and exposed. And Mr. Clark, who came to the "make money" channel, will gradually become convinced that work and politics are not such different concepts. Not accepting socialism, he quite sincerely sympathizes with the enthusiasm of the Soviet people. Love for the translator - Komsomol member Maria Polozova - helps Clark to comprehend what is happening.

An old pickpocket named "Cardinal", during the days of the International Festival of Youth and Students, decides to gather old “personnels” to prepare small and large thefts from the festival participants. During the "conference" it turns out that a complete "personnel crisis" has come. The ensuing meeting with the former bootlegger — Senka-Moroz, who broke with his past and found happiness in his family and honest work, leads the Cardinal to confusion and mental confusion. A conversation with Professor Muromtsev, a terminally ill person who nevertheless cares about the fate of others, shock the "Cardinal" and he takes the first but decisive step towards a new life, breaking with the criminal world.

Pregnant German woman is trapped behind Russian lines. When she goes into labor, three Soviet soldiers deliver her to a field hospital: a newly graduated officer, an affable truck driver, and a soldier shell-shocked into muteness. The dangerous trip to the hospital ends up a rite of passage for all concerned.

Immediately after their wedding, a young family of archaeologists comes to Central Asia for excavations. The plague epidemic that broke out there separates the newlyweds for a while and forces the girl's mother to turn to her ex-husband for help.

The first postwar years. The Director of a small breeding station Avdotya Pavlovna is not immediately convinced of the anti-science of the official Lysenkov direction in biology. But making sure leaving the farm as an ordinary agriculturist, where he works on breeding new wheat varieties on the basis of the persecuted Lysenkova chromosome theory of heredity.

In one of the steppe regions of Kazakhstan arrives on Komsomol youth squad. Severe frosts, spring mud flows, exhausting work than their specialty - the development of virgin land does not come easy. But the young are young - they work, enjoy life, fall in love. In the center of the story - the touching romance secretary of the Komsomol organization and tractor driver Anne.

An unexpected romance occurs for a female Red Army sniper and a White Army officer.