Due to a very dry year, the khan ordered the entire young population to go in search of better places and leave the old people at home. All the old people were left to die and only one boy, risking his life, took his grandfather with him, hiding him in a large box. On the road, three times the wisdom of the old man helped everyone, and having learned that it was the old man who helped, the khan ordered his soldiers to take all the old men left behind with them...

Once upon a time, miles and miles away, there was an old man with an old woman. They spent with each other a long time but had no children. One day an old man made a dolly of dough, put her on the oven, and suddenly a baby was born out of a dolly, and he wasnt a simple child, because he grew before their eyes, ate like seven, until he grew into a huge and strong guy. There was the thing that grieved old men, that he had no heart, after all, he was made of dough. Once he met a neighboring beauty girl, paid compliments to her, fooling around, she thought he had fallen in love, and didnt know at that time that he had no heart, and fell in love with the hercules. He started getting cast down, and headed, as they say, to show his worth and see the others

In the house of goldmaker Tikhon Kondratievich Molokov, carnival is celebrated noisily, on a grand scale, with gypsies. Everyone drank pretty, and when the mayor tried to “seduce” the owner’s daughter Anisya, the girl’s father broke his nose. Frightened by the consequences of this incident, Tikhon Kondratievich decided to flee the city.

A film adaptation of Pavel Bazhov's short story.

Like many boys and girls whose early years included the Great Patriotic War, 16-year-old Dusya was eager to go to the front. She and her family lived not far from Sukhumi, and not a week passed without Dusya stopping by the local military registration and enlistment office. Each time the military commissar refused to grant her request, but Dusya did not give up and one day she was offered to enter an intelligence school.