Six-year-old Anička Čejková has moved with her parents from the village to a new housing estate in Prague. For now, she and her father are alone, but her mother is due to return from the hospital soon with her newborn Ondřej. Anička gets lost during her first walk around the neighborhood, but a nice young woman helps her. She is teacher Řeháková, in whose class 1. And soon Anička will start. The first-graders like the school, and when Anička confides in them that her mother will be back soon, they decide to give her a festive welcome.

A group of outcasts, including a vagabond and a prostitute, gather at the outskirts of the industrial area of a large Czech city, one of the things that helps some of them survive is alcohol.