Viktor Chaynikov

The front-line friends during the heavy battle swore to each other that the one who would survive would continue the work of the deceased. Mikhail Nesterov remained alive and the main business of his life was the search for a deposit of valuable clay. These searches began his friend before the war, in remote taiga places. Yevdokiya Perevalova — the widow of a deceased friend decides to help Nesterov get to those deaf places...

Kolya Kasatkin, who saw in his wife Tanyusha the ideal of female charm, tenderness, kindness, who loved her to the point of oblivion, was at a loss before the idle conversations of well-wishers about his wife's betrayal. Having found his wife with the choir director, Nikolai demanded a divorce. Continuing to love each other, the former spouses are unhappy in separation. Kasatkin's new hasty marriage did not return his peace of mind. In daily agony, in the pursuit of a past life, he also lost his old dream — to live and work in the Far East, where he served in the army. Both realized too late that love does not forgive hasty decisions, that it must be able to keep and protect.

In the Siberian taiga village of Wolf's Burrows, the Strogov family lives — Matvey with his wife Anna and his parents. Through the fate of this peasant family, a picture of the life of the Siberian region during major historical events — the Russo-Japanese War, the 1905 Revolution, the October Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War is outlined.

Leonid Pleshcheyev returned from the war blind. Against his will, he became a dependent. He drowns his grief in unrestrained drunkenness, thereby tormenting his wife Mariya and his teenage son Lyonka. Mariya finally decides to take her son and leave for Altai, but the boy runs away and returns to his father. So, together, they eke out a half-miserable existence until Grigoriy Shalagin, Pleshcheyev's longtime friend, returns from the army. It is he who awakens in Leonid the extinct self-esteem and pride of a soldier. Pity aside, he helps him get back to work.