Zhenya Prokhorov, a pupil of an orphanage, draws the attention of the director of the capital's choir school. The professor strongly advises Zhenya to study. Having become a soloist in the boys' choir, Zhenya does not refuse from "left" concerts organized by the enterprising Victor Victorovich - and one day tears his voice. The young hero bears the first loss with dignity, and after graduating from the school enters the conservatory at the faculty of composition.

The film tells about the battles of the young patriots left in Simferopol occupied by the fascists and the heroic death of the Georgian girl, Zoya Rukhadze. After a number of successful operations, the fascists search and arrest everyone named Zoya. According to the decision of the illegal center, Zoya has to leave the city, but she cannot come to terms with the idea that innocent girls are being tortured by the Gestapo because of her.

Beautifully shot in black and white, and scripted by Tarkovsky's collaborator Andrei Konchalovsky, this powerful melodrama tells the story of a young boy who undertakes the perilous journey to Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent, to earn some money for his hungry family. Filming in the periphery of the Soviet Union, in a time of relative political relaxation, director Shukhrat Abbasov actually dared to depict the poverty and famine that resulted from the Bolshevik Revolution.