Vladimir Lyubimov

On the evening of May 9, 1945, when Moscow is noisily and cheerfully celebrating the Victory Day, a young girl agronomist Zina Sokolova and a sailor officer Lavrentyev meet in the compartment of the Moscow-Vladivostok train. The sailor takes the lively, direct character of the girl for windiness and frivolity. Sokolova also reacted frowningly and mockingly to the satellite. To get to know each other better, travelers are helped by nuisance: they are behind the train, and the rest of the way they are together, getting to know people and the life of the country along the way.

Surrounded by a few party officials, Alexei Ivanov, a stakhanovist smelter, is decorated by Stalin. The "Little Father of the Peoples" takes this opportunity to invoke threats of war.... One day, war indeed breaks out. Bombs fall on the field where Alexei finds himself in the company of the schoolmistress Natacha, his fiancée. Alexei joins the Red Army and soon becomes a sergeant. Fighting rages and German troops advance. Natacha is arrested and deported. But the tide turns decisively with the German defeat at Stalingrad. Now the major offensive against Hitler can begin.