Tsar Nicholas I is enamoured by Natalia, the wife of Alexander Pushkin. To cover his tracks, the tsar encourages the suit of Georges d'Anthès, a French officer, with the help of Count Alexander von Benckendorff. Pushkin hears rumours of D’Anthès’s love for his wife and challenges him to a duel.

In the process of housing redistribution, a worker and his daughter are relocated from a damp basement to one of the rooms at a professor's spacious flat. Factory workers begin to visit and the number of guests grows and grows; the professor begins to hold widely attended lectures at the workers' club. Romance blossoms between the professor's youngest son and the worker's daughter, and the two decide to marry...

The NEP era. Two families with the same surname, Ivanov, live in Leningrad. They are visited by American relatives, who turn out to be confused. Ivanov the draughtsman's unsuccessful plan to rob the American is replaced by cooperation, as a result of which the American finds a job at Volkhovstroy and decides to stay in the USSR.