Schoolboy Igor dreams of becoming a naval officer. But his father, a captain second rank, dreams of a musical career for his son. When the family moved to one of the northern islands, Igor organized a choir at school and became its leader. One day, the boy was hurt, and he began to doubt his abilities. But the arts competition in Murmansk, where he successfully performed in place of the soloist who had lost his voice, restored the dreamer's faith in his talent.

A mining town in Russia at the end of the nineties. A miners' strike has paralysed the place, corruption and fraud are flourishing in the transitional period from a socialist economy to a market economy. In this world of lost souls lives Yekaterina Artemovna (Katya). This unconspicuous woman has, in the words of her future lover, a "heart of gold". The only bright spots in her lonely life in a meagre communal apartment are literature and her work in the town library. The only bright ray flashed in the life of the heroine is a visiting sailor. But he turns out to be a gigolo and leaves the poor woman. The tense string inside the heroine bursts, the iron nerves lose, and restrained Yekaterina at this point loses all patience with life and ready for the most desperate and cruel revenge...

Based on the eponymous play-fable by Samuil Marshak, produced by the State Central Children's Theatre (Russian Academic Youth Theatre).