Having once seen a portrait of the shah dancer Madina Banu, the singer Murad-ali falls in love with a beauty and sets off in search of her. The hero finds himself in the palace of the Shah, and soon becomes convinced of the reciprocity of his feelings. But his appearance becomes known to the Shah. An angry ruler offers him a choice: rejection of his beloved or the burning of both at the stake.
At the center of the action is Kamil Yuldashev, commander of the ChK battalion to combat banditry. He appears before the viewer with a noose around his neck. Even before the revolution, the tribunal of the tsarist Turkestan division sentenced him to death for participating in the rebellion.