Vera Panova

In Leningrad, at the end of the White Nights, young and childishly naive Nina meets a young journalist Valery. She falls in love with that genuine first love, which is only possible when you're 19 years old. She does not suspect that for such an ambitious aesthetic as Valerik, this is just another episode in an endless celebration of life. The leitmotif of the film, which became a cultural landmark for several generations of people born in Leningrad - St. Petersburg, is the natural scenery of the beautiful city on the Neva river at the beginning of the sixties.

The film is set in the 1920s. Shura Sevastyanov is an aspiring journalist in a small newspaper, with two-classes of a parochial school behind him. In the spirit of building communism, he is an ardent fighter against philistinism in all its forms. He denies the phenomenon of love, believing that it does not exist and that there is only friendship and sexual desire of man to woman.

Based on the novel of the same name by Vera Panova. The story takes place at a major defense plant in the final days of the Great Patriotic War and in the first months following the victory. The war has brought together very different people at Kruzhilikha — the name of the plant — united by a common goal: to support the front and do everything they can for the sake of victory.

Two strangers meet in an ambulance train during WWII.

On the outskirts of the provincial town, Yevdokim and Yevdokiya live, raising foster children. Yevdokim works at a factory, Yevdokiya is a housewife. The family seems to be safe and happy: the only trouble is that Yevdokiya cannot forget the love of her youth. This Yevdokim cannot stand and offers Yevdokiya freedom, while he will remain with the children. But all these contradictions are drowned in mutual love for children and for each other.

Four stories from the life of Sasha Agafonov, who started living on his own. After getting a job as a driver at a large construction site, Sasha met a lovely girl named Lisa and helped her with housing by inviting her to live in his apartment. She kicked him out. He left for Central Asia, where he found a friend, Victor, who became his partner on long-distance trips. When Victor died in a car accident, Sasha went to Murmansk. There he had a brief romance with a married woman named Polina. And now, wise from life experience, Alexander Agafonov—manly and reserved—knows for sure that happiness is in his hands.

On the streets of the regional city, a cheerful holiday bustle reigns. The apartment of the Kupriyanovs is also noisy — friends of their youngest daughter Yulka are preparing for the New Year. The old driver Leonid Kupriyanov will not have to celebrate the holiday with his family, he should go on the next trip. Preparing for the New Year, none of the heroes imagined what dramatic events would fall on them, how difficult and unexpectedly the destinies of three families would intertwine, how difficult it would be to recover from their experiences ...

The entire story unfolds during a wedding. The characters of the play, looking at the happy faces of the newlyweds, recall their own love and weddings. The action gradually unfolds on three levels, in three different time periods, covering the youth and lives of three generations, alongside which the author’s own life has passed.