Mikhail Povolotsky

Picking up where 1938's My Childhood left off, the story covers the years in Gorki's life when the future writer was on his own, looking for a purpose and place in life.

My Universities is the last installment of Russian director Mark Donskoy's "Maxim Gorki" trilogy. Having endured a painful youth in My Childhood and a torturous sojourn as a serf in My Apprenticeship, future writer Gorki reaches maturity with an insatiable desire for personal and artistic freedom. Gorky goes to work in the shipyards and commisserates with the hard-drinking, philosophical dockworkers.

Andrei Latonin had jumped with a parachute many times before, but on the day of the holiday he got scared and stayed in the cockpit of the plane. Deeply upset by his failure, Latonin decides to leave his homeland forever and joins a steamship as a sailor. On the way, Andrei meets an expedition group heading for the crater of an active volcano and joins the scientists.