Smelchak

Partially lost.

In a Kazakh village at the beginning of Soviet power, a wealthy kulak (landowner) voluntarily denounces his opposition to the new regime and hands over his large home to be a new school for the children of the villagers. But three people in the village have difficulty believing that their class enemy is now their friend.

Jacob, a farmer, returns from the war to his wife Marie and begs the landlord baron for a plot of land to rent. The Baron grants the request, but only for a barren, rocky, useless acreage. The pair struggle to make do on this land, but then the Baron demands that Maria leave her husband to serve as wet nurse to his married daughter Anya's new baby, on threat of eviction. While nursing the daughter's baby, Maria receives unwelcome attentions from the daughter's husband, and a scandal erupts, ruining Maria in her husband's eyes. When she escapes from her employers and seeks to return home, the police give her the yellow passport signifying a prostitute, further degrading her. She approaches home, unsure of the reception that awaits her.

During the good old days of the Russian aristocracy, that is to say, before the October Revolution, in the city of Moscow there was a fancy restaurant which catered to the appetites and egos of the rich. In one such establishment works a middle-aged waiter who is devoted to serving his bourgeoisie clients correctly. However, his life outside his job is very different: His son was killed during the Russian civil war and the waiter's wife died of grief as a result....

Lipa and Vera had been friends since childhood. Now, having finished their boarding school, each of them faces her own path in life. Tormented by poverty, Lipa is forced to marry the old, dull, and cruel Tolokonnikov. However, she cannot bear the tyranny of the cowardly official for long. Leaving her husband, she departs from Rasteryaeva Street. Vera's life turned out differently. Fleeing with a hussar, she spent several turbulent years, but, exhausted, she returned once again to Rasteryaeva Street. And nothing had changed there.