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.

Boxer Gennady Stakhov comes to his fiancée - a tenth-grader Maya - to meet her parents. But there he meets Lida, Maya's older sister, with whom he once had an affair. And now the boxer's successes and failures are at the mercy of old love.

The main character is a talented, but timid writer of the Filippok experiencing with his country the difficult years of revolution, devastation and war. Adversity helps him overcome the unrequited and faithful love for the widow of Commissioner Zinochka, who bossily manages his career, not hesitating to start novels with other men. Filippok will describe the story of his life in a book that at the end of days will be presented by a terminally ill, but still dearly beloved wife, with gratitude for the experience.

It was 1927. Philip Kasatkin, the son of a farm laborer, joined the Komsomol and began a whirlwind of activity, full of worries, victories, and defeats.