Timosh, a young village boy, finds himself in the ministry of Father Mikhail, a priest who hides in a convent with him after a scandal with the Count. There Timosh encounters the mundane mores of the monastery, where the abbess and sisters are steeped in greed, duplicity and intrigue, despite their lofty sermons on morality. Seeing this contradiction, Timosh decides to return to ordinary life outside the convent.

A recognized mathematician proves to the plant management that the new pipe rolling mill needs to be stopped and improved. The conflict ruins his daughter’s personal life when she is abandoned by her fiancé, the head of a pipe-rolling shop, a careerist and a coward. Yielding to the persuasion of a friend, the hero decides to leave practical activities and move to Sverdlovsk to devote himself entirely to science. However, realizing that the source of his talent is practice, he returns to his home factory...

Egor Polushkin (Stanislav Lyubshin) is a kind-hearted, nature loving, artistic family man who is living in a small village. To his neighbors and even his wife (Nina Ruslanova) he is a walking disaster, so they frown at him and call him Bedonosec (engl. misfortune bearer). Only Egors son (Viktor Anisimov) shares his enthusiasm for the beautiful things of live. As Egor becomes the new forest ranger, this new position brings him not only joy, but it is also the source of great suffering to come, as his fondness for the living nature and especially the newly acquired white swans is in conflict with the interests of others...

The film is about events which has happened with the "Potyomkin" ship.