A music student is expelled from school because he loves jazz, a kind of music that represents the US capitalism. He hires two street musicians to form a dixie band, and goes from one city to another trying to gain fame.

War correspondent Lopatin takes a 20-day-leave from his hard work at the front in 1942. He travels to faraway Tashkent to meet the family of the killed soldier and visit the film set of the screen adaptation of his war-time stories. Lopatin also manages to walk the streets of Tashkent, take part in a factory workers' meeting and have a short-lived love affair. Although with no bombings and fighting, the city dwellers breathe the atmosphere of the ongoing war.

Follows the life of Yuldash Akhunbabayev, one of the first leaders of Uzbekistan. The painting covers the period from the late 1930s to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

The poet Habib is writing a poem about the Uzbek steppe. But his creativity is hindered by conflicts at work and at home.