Leonid Slisarenko

August 1941. The commissar, fearing for the life of the German anti‑fascist communist Rettel, sends him and his son Otto in an ambulance train to the rear. During a raid, Rettel is killed, and the eighteen‑year‑old boy ends up with the combat crew led by Senior Sergeant Zhigarev, who has received an urgent order to hold the position — or, in the worst‑case scenario, to blow up the bridge. Zhigarev clearly doesn’t trust the young German...

Boris Zhadanovsky, a hereditary nobleman and officer who was predicted to have a brilliant military career, sides with the rebellious people. In 1905, Zhadanovsky is sentenced to death for his revolutionary activities. However, a powerful strike movement organized in response to the court's decision forces the tsarist government to commute the sentence to life imprisonment. After the revolution, Zhadanovsky joins the Red Army and dies fighting the White Army.

Civil war. Residents of the Ukrainian village of Ostapovka decide to take a neutral position and wait out the war. But not everyone agrees with this point of view on current events. Young people unite and join the ranks of the fighters of the revolution...

Follows the grandson minds his own business, forgetting about his grandmother.