TV director Pavel Prishvin is filming with his friend-filmmaker, whose film talks about Stalinism

Commissioner Maigret's new case. At the rate of his further service in the police.

The main characters of the film are Zhenya and Volodya: these are young guys from wealthy families who have been friends since childhood, both work in the company of Volodya’s father and are fond of motor sports. Volodya has a bride, Olga, but, as Zhenya becomes aware, she is going to marry solely for selfish ends. A friend refuses to believe it, and then Eugene decides to prevent the tragedy on her own. Mercilessly and publicly, he breaks down the wedding, loses a friend and breaks the heart of Tanya, Olga's sister, who is selflessly and secretly in love with him. The whole story takes place against the backdrop of upheavals within the Zhenya’s family: the mother threw them with her sister Sveta into the care of her father, as a result, Sveta is closed and pathologically unsure of herself, and the imperious father is constantly dissatisfied with his children.

Pre-Petrine Russia, Semyon Lazarev, one of the instigators of the “Copper Riot”, is forced to flee, as a result of which he ends up in the army of the leader of the peasant uprising Stepan Razin.

An armed attack on cash messengers is undertaken near a trade center in a small provincial town, an agent of Ministry of Internal Affairs dies in crossfire. A crime investigator major Rovnin (V. Kuznetsov), who appeared to be a close friend of the deceased, comes from Moscow to assist in the investigation. He is astonished at how savagely his friend was shot, as if someone was revenging. Local investigating bodies are convinced that they can manage this and arent too satisfied with the arrival of Moscow expert. They try to handle this as soon as possible, even at the cost of mistake. But the majors task is to find the killer, in spite of the fact that he is left nothing but to hold the investigation by himself.