Venyamin Zuskin

During the 1920s, many impoverished Jews searching for a better life made their way to Birobidzhan, the Soviet Jewish Autonomous Region on the Chinese border. This melodrama tells the story of a Jewish family's immigration to Birobidzhan and their experiences as settlers on a collective farm in the area.

The residents of the village of Staroje Dudino, located four kilometers west of the Soviet border, are completely dependent on the wealthy Novik, whose interests are protected by the local police and clergy. Novik is actively stirring up ethnic strife between the Jewish poor and Polish workers. During the traditional "black crown" ceremony (a wedding ceremony for an old man and an old woman), a group of factory workers led by the communist Haidul, together with the Jewish poor, attack the police and free Boris Bernstein, who had been sentenced to death.

The story of a Jewish entrepreneur ins Tsarist Russia always look for a get rich quick scheme.

Memories of the old Baltic sailor who participated in a revolution and a few wars...

A semi-sequel to Donskoi's Raduga (1944), the story is set in Nazi-occupied Kyiv. The drama focusses on the travails of a typical Soviet family and on the efforts by the Germans to force the reopening of a local munitions factory.