Igor Bastrikov

Two village boys - brothers Semyon and Pavel - serve a Moscow merchant-shopkeeper. They face harsh exploitation and hard forced labor. The brothers' life paths diverge. Unable to withstand the merchant's bullying, Pavel goes to the factory, becomes a worker, and later a professional revolutionary. Semyon remains in service. In the post-revolutionary period, Semyon, having been to the front and returning to the village, joined the kulaks, brutally dealt with representatives of the Soviet government, becoming the head of a gang of “badgers” hiding in the forests. A Red Army detachment led by Pavel is sent to fight the bandits...

The driver of a remote timber enterprise, Kirpichenko, is flying from Khabarovsk to Moscow with a transit stop in the South. A chance encounter with a flight attendant on the plane determines his fate: to fly this route back and forth until the money runs out.