Editor
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.
Editor
The setting is the east shore of the Caspian Sea (today's Turkmenistan) where the Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov has been fighting the Civil War in Russian Asia for a number of years. After being hospitalised and then demobbed, he sets off home to join his wife, only to be caught up in a desert fight between a Red Army cavalry unit and Basmachi guerrillas. The cavalry unit commander, Rahimov, "convinces" Sukhov to help, temporarily, with the protection of abandoned women of the Basmachi guerrilla leader Abdullah's harem. Leaving a young Red Army soldier, Petrukha, to assist Sukhov with the task, Rahimov and his cavalry unit set out to pursue fleeing Abdullah.Sukhov and women from Abdullah's harem return to a nearby shore town. Soon, looking for a seaway across the border, Abdullah and his gang come to the same town...
