Valeriy Zalivin

Russia, 1919. A young soldier of the First Cavalry Army, Aleksei Mikhalyov, is sent to work in the provincial Cheka. Here in the south of the country there is a large White Guard underground led by the elusive Markov. Aleksei gets into the gang, where he is mistaken for his own. The day of the operation to eliminate the white underground is appointed. But unforeseen circumstances destroy the plans of the Chekists.

Four inseparable friends — Sergei, Nina, Oska and Zhenya — spent all their school childhood on the Clean Ponds, in Moscow. But the school is over, and in their beloved gazebo they dream of the future, swear fidelity to each other and do not yet know that tomorrow war will break out and they will become participants in terrible events.

Former fighter pilot turned provincial schoolmistress Nadezhda Petrovna struggles to adapt to peacetime, having internalised military ideals of service and obedience.