Iosif Matusevich

Woman meets a man during a difficult post-WWII time...

The Great Patriotic War. Seven peasants from the village of Dalva are transporting collected grain by wagon to the village of Tartak. On the way, they are stopped by Nazi punitive forces. To shield themselves from the bullets of local resistance fighters, the soldiers force the peasants to march at the front of their column. Suddenly, the partisans launch an attack on the Germans.

A Few Amusing Episodes from the Life of the Village of Golodranka One day, a young peasant named Stepan lost his mare, who ran off pulling a cart full of hay. Stepan spent the whole day scouring the forest roads in search of her—only to find the stubborn beast calmly standing in his own yard. Furious, he swore to chop her to pieces with an axe. Another fellow, Artyom, ran away from home to escape his quarrelsome wife. He climbed down into the deepest village well and flatly refused to come out until his wife swore never to scold or hit him again. But what truly amused the villagers—both men and women—was Roman Sotsky’s antics. With a straight face, he assured a frightened constable that the strange man who had appeared in the village was "clearly a pure-blooded Sicilist."

Not young bus driver goes to the next trip. In this trip he recalls his childhood during WW2. But there is another danger people among passengers of the bus.

Fritz Schmenkel, a farm worker and soldier in the fascist Wehrmacht, deserts in Belarus in 1941. He wants to survive, makes his way to Russian farmers and comes into contact with Soviet partisans who, after long interrogations by the German teacher and current partisan Miron, take him in as one of their own. Schmenkel proves his reliability in a number of daring actions and is awarded the Order of the Red Banner. In the winter of 1943/44, he is given a reconnaissance mission and falls into the hands of the fascists in Minsk. After days of interrogation, which he withstands, the Nazis execute him.