The Soldier's Son

A story about boys in a sailors school.

1919. Gleb Prokhorov, a worker from St. Petersburg, is sent on a mission by the party to lead a small food supply detachment with a mandate signed by Lenin to a village to get bread for starving Petrograd. But in an unequal battle with the kulaks, the entire food supply detachment is killed, and the wounded Prokhorov passes the mandate on to his thirteen-year-old son, Glebka...

The July days of 1917 in Petrograd. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets, including the elderly and children. They are marching with red banners, singing songs. And suddenly, machine gun fire is heard from the attic. The dead and wounded fall to the pavement. And immediately detachments of mounted Cossacks poured out of the alleys... Andreika, the son of a St. Petersburg worker, miraculously survived this altercation. But little Elena's mother was killed. That's how Andreika got a little sister. The Provisional Government issues a decree on Lenin's arrest. There are spies all over Petrograd. One of them, Ensign Kolokov, disguised as Uncle Vitya's janitor, settled not far from Andreika's house.

During the Russian Civil War, orphan Fyodor (Fedka) Trofimov, whose father was killed by Whites, is adopted by a Red cavalry unit.

In a professional school a girls and boys brigades are competing to finish the big order in time.

A first feeling starts to develop between a boy and a girl living in the same building but her family suddenly must move.

Klava and Seryozha (Sergey) have been together since preschool. He, one of the smartest kids in school, has always been in love with her but considered her more of just a pretty face rather than an intelligent person. He let her copy his homework and gave her his parents' things as gifts. When they are teens, Klava rejects his love because she knows that he doesn't value her for her, and instead is attracted to Lavrik, another intelligent boy from school. Klava likes him because for the first time she feels like someone is really interested in her as a person. Seryoszha, being very dramatic and wanting Klava's/everyone else's sympathy, writes a suicide note, "Please blame Klava K. for my death," but can he really commit suicide? Eventually he realizes that he is being too shallow and that while he makes such a drama out of such small problems, the people around him have real problems, but never said a thing.

A story about training and educating of a future Red Army officers.

About the heroism of Leningrad partisan Larisa Mikhenko during the Great Patriotic War.

Young steelworker Fyodor Shebalin raises questions with his superiors about the organization of production and puts forward a number of proposals. The naive young man is ordered to work as he should. The young man does not give up and involves the factory's youth in his experiments...

A story of a friendship between a boy and a girl during a pre-revolutionary times in Russia.

A little girl named Katherine saved one boy's life during the bombing in Leningrad while under the Siege in WWII. The boy cannot speak yet. So she gave him a name Seryozha and provided him with food and care. She was later adopted by the boy's father, who recognized his son.

After his father's death, teenager Viktor Tsaplin was sent by his stepmother, who suspected the boy of stealing watches, to an Odessa orphanage. The guys met the new guy unfriendly, and when the teacher's antique watch was missing, Victor was considered the culprit. After enrolling in a nautical school and once going to sea with tipsy fishermen, Victor crashes a boat. He is being expelled from the college. Deciding to start a new life and in a new place, Victor leaves to work as a fireman in Kamchatka.

About how the boys of the Kabardian village help adults to raise fleet-footed horses.

Young naturalists go to the village, among them are three guys who have read adventure literature. They dream of becoming real hunters in the spirit of the heroes of the novels of Mein-Reed.