The Great Russian scientist, famous politician and poet M.Lomonosov is severely ill. Understanding that there is not much time left for him to live, he decides to visit his beloved small native town. Taking a coach, he heads for the motherland of his ancestors. A shaky road raises thoughts and reminiscences about his days of youth, about the time when he was young and unknown, how he made first steps on his long way of the truth comprehension. He recollects early death and funeral of his mother, the repeated, and not very successful marriage of his father, hatred of stepmother, care of godfather, who gave him the books of Peter the Great, wandering monk, who taught him the fundamentals of science, Latin, and, of course, his first love.
Mitya
The action takes place during the Great Patriotic War. Peasant Matryona Bystrova loses her husband at the front, then her eldest son goes missing. Matryona decides to save the youngest son at all costs and shelters him from being drafted into the army in the attic of the house until the end of the war. But it turns out that saving her son, she condemns him to spiritual death, and herself to torment of conscience. A private story about the mother of a deserter grows to epic proportions...
