Ivan Sidorov

1918. Despite the conclusion of peace between Soviet Russia and Germany, provocations continue on the border. Soldier Yakub Kovalenok returns to his native village. At the fair, he tries to buy a horse; he’s ready to pay anything for it, even to sell a grenade. Some young nobleman snatches it away and, running off, leaves Yakub a red bicycle. In the village, Yakub finds out that he has the bicycle of Stas Dobuzhinsky, a courier for Kurnevich’s gang, which has long been being tracked down by a detachment of Red Army soldiers. The Bolshevik Alena recognizes the traitor’s bicycle and requisitions it, despite Yakub’s explanations. Outraged by such lawlessness, Yakub decides to seek justice and writes a letter of complaint to Lenin himself...

Doctor Vera Pavlovna Zanemonets has recently been working at the Genetics Research Institute and is thinking about her dissertation. Her life is quite prosperous: her favorite job, family. One day, on an urgent call, Vera goes to her sister, who lives in the village and needs urgent surgery after an accident. But there is no surgeon in the village hospital, and Vera decides to urgently operate on her sister.

Roman Paskevich, a rural teacher, arrives in a small Belarusian town occupied by the Nazis. In reality, he is a secret agent of the Nazi intelligence service named Erich. He is tasked with tracking down partisan units, finding out their plans, numbers, and combat equipment. Erich-Roman becomes a frequent guest in the home of an elderly woman, Baba Vera, whom he believes to be a partisan liaison. A simple woman who seems unremarkable, at a critical moment she reveals herself to be an extraordinary person with an exceptional personality. She is raising twelve children in her home. The war took away these children's parents and deprived them of their homes. At great personal risk, Baba Vera obtains food and clothing for her foster children and saves them from many dangers. She is ready to give her life for the victory of the righteous cause. Baba Vera herself is unlikely to realize the greatness of her feat — she acts as her heart dictates...

Pavel Ivanovich Shumov is a public assessor of the court, an engineer, and a good family man. At the next court hearing, some circumstances of the defendant’s life convince the hero that this is his son. Shumov is looking for the defendant’s mother and, not recognizing her as the woman he once loved, returns home...

1944 Sergeant Vasily Kalina returns to his native village of Pastoron after the hospital. But he does not find the village: retreating, the Germans burned all the houses and mined the fields. The restoration of the economy is led by the former commander of the partisan detachment Grigory Gorovoy. He appoints Vasily as the chairman of the collective farm. Soon Kalina learns that Claudia, whom he loved before the war, considering him dead, married Gorovoy. The current situation is not an easy test for all three...