Wandering minstrel Ashik Kerib falls in love with a rich merchant's daughter, but is spurned by her father and forced to roam the world for a thousand and one nights. Now presumed dead by those he loves, he performs for the poor and unfortunate on his journeys through the wilderness. Parajanov's visually ravishing 'tableaux vivants' tell Lermontov's romantic tale while Turkish and Azerbaijani folk songs transport us into its mystical landscapes.
One day, Sona, the widow and mother of three children, turns her attention to the inveterate bachelor Ruben. Since then, an engineer, a jack of all trades and an incorrigible dreamer only thinks about her
Armen is an employee of the State Archive, an irrepressible young man, who is not indifferent to the grief, injustice, and meanness of other's. Armen feels responsible for solving these problems, even though they have no direct bearing on him.
Artyom (Armen Dzhigarkhanyan) is a scientist who buries himself in his work after the woman he loves dies during the war. He is informed of his sweetheart's death by a young woman, and soon love blossoms between the lonely doctor and the emerging beauty. This is the big-screen debut of Margarita Terekhova in the popular film that was seen by over 20 million in the USSR.
