A gentleman and his friend attended an exhibition of new art where modernist artists exhibited their ridiculous works. Among them is a dead rat on a tray. The gentleman buys the "work" and invites the authors to his house for dinner, warning that it will be as original as their painting. The assembled guests intend to honor the invited modernists by smearing them with raspberry jam. The artists run around the room and finally hide under the table. After apologizing to themselves, they leave the reception.

The WWII. Berestova, an air regiment engineer, meets Ardatov, a fighter pilot whose wife has died. Now he must think about how to raise his two children alone. However, Arbatov does not live to see victory. After the war Berestova finds his children and adopts them.

About the great Czech satirist Jaroslav Hašek, who was captured by the Russians during the First World War. Not wanting to fight for the interests of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Hašek enters the Red Army and, as a commissar of the international brigade, goes the military way from Samara to Irkutsk.

Roman Kurykin, an amateur jazzman and the owner of an absolute ear for music, cannot reconcile himself to the idea that his son Edik does not show any interest in music. The dejected father, in desperation, suspected that the child could have been replaced in the maternity hospital by mistake. He got the addresses of two families where the sons were born at the same time as the younger Kurykin. Kurykin reports his suspicions to two other fathers, Shulgin and Sazonov. In secret from their wives, husbands begin their investigation.