Varya Berezina has just graduated from high school. My parents are getting divorced, my beloved grandmother is pestering me about the meaning of life. Mishka is a good guy — he loves Varka very much, but he doesn't understand a lot. Having not received the documents, she leaves for the city to her sister. My sister has a big new apartment, a good husband and a dear family friend — neighbor Vissarion Arkadyevich. He is a doctor and everyone loves him. He helps Varka to enter the institute, but she has neither documents nor knowledge. My sister is very worried. And Varka gets a job in a hospital, where he can often see a doctor and be with people. When Vissarion Arkadyevich is transferred to Leningrad, Varka returns to the village.

Follows the life of the Russian mathematician Sofya Kovalevskaya.

Set in the early 1920s after the end of the Russian Civil War, Red Army soldier Nikita returns to his hometown to see his partner Lyuba, both of whom are scarred by the trauma of the Russian Empire of yesteryear.