Yurii Tymoshenko

Surrounded by a few party officials, Alexei Ivanov, a stakhanovist smelter, is decorated by Stalin. The "Little Father of the Peoples" takes this opportunity to invoke threats of war.... One day, war indeed breaks out. Bombs fall on the field where Alexei finds himself in the company of the schoolmistress Natacha, his fiancée. Alexei joins the Red Army and soon becomes a sergeant. Fighting rages and German troops advance. Natacha is arrested and deported. But the tide turns decisively with the German defeat at Stalingrad. Now the major offensive against Hitler can begin.

It is 1920. After three years of the Russian Civil War, communist government is finally established in Odessa. Young Volodya Kozachenko, who dreams of being a detective like Sherlock Holmes, joins the newly forming Odessa Criminal Police.

Post-war reconstruction. New residents turn on their first television in their new apartment—a bulky bandura with a tiny screen. On the screen are Tarapunka and Shtepsel, who promise a real revue — more precisely, a tour of Kyiv. But how can you do a tour if you can't see anything from here, Tarapunka reasonably asks. They decide to climb the radio transmission tower.

During the war, Tarapunka meets Galya, but their paths diverge. The war ends, Tarapunka finds a job as a traffic cop in Kyiv, and his friend Shtepsel becomes a theater technician. Galya comes there to perform. The paths of the heroes cross again, and the concert introduces new comedians to the world.

The fire department is preparing for the New Year. Three activists of amateur performances decide to kidnap professional artists for a New Year's concert. A police captain investigates the kidnapping and listens to complaints from the “unkidnapped” artists.

Young musician Zhenya Kovalchuk falls in love with aerobatic pilot Yulia. The feeling is mutual, but Yulia cannot bring herself to reveal her feelings to Zhenya. Then the famous, but not yet elderly, Doctor of Science Kressovsky, who also hopes for Yulia's affection, stands in his way. The two suitors clash with their swords, and the duel ends with the doctor being wounded. The doctor intrigues, and Zhenya faces expulsion from the institute.

A chemist by training, Alexandr Bochkin manages a Moscow dry-cleaning operation, but lives a very comfortable life, taking orders on the side for his speculative "private enterprise," run in conjunction with "Queen Margot". But when his old friend from the chemical institute, Yuri Lebedev arrives in Moscow from the Siberian city of Dalnegorsk, along with a traveling companion, Olga, Bochkin becomes uncomfortable with his job title.

Local comic duo from the Ukraine reach for the "big time" by entering a talent contest for the Moscow vaudeville circuit, must overcome the interference of an established, competition-shy duo who are helping judge the contest.