An old pickpocket named "Cardinal", during the days of the International Festival of Youth and Students, decides to gather old “personnels” to prepare small and large thefts from the festival participants. During the "conference" it turns out that a complete "personnel crisis" has come. The ensuing meeting with the former bootlegger — Senka-Moroz, who broke with his past and found happiness in his family and honest work, leads the Cardinal to confusion and mental confusion. A conversation with Professor Muromtsev, a terminally ill person who nevertheless cares about the fate of others, shock the "Cardinal" and he takes the first but decisive step towards a new life, breaking with the criminal world.

During a freezing WWII winter, two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the temperature, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.