Alla fine degli anni Venti il governo dei Soviet lancia la grande campagna dei Piani Quinquennali della cosiddetta Nep, la Nuova Politica Economica dell'Urss. Lo scopo è quello di modernizzare il paese a tappe forzate, per recuperare il gap tecnologico e produttivo con gli altri grandi paesi del mondo.

For the construction of the plant comes a team of ironworkers, they will carry out the installation of the blast furnace according to the new method. A film about the difficult characters of ordinary Soviet people who know how to work, dream, love - to build a great human happiness.

Second half of the 1960s.

Novikov, an employee of the apparatus, is a charming and successful functionary, married to the daughter of a former party leader. His life is a success — he has a status, a family, two children, as well as a young mistress — student Tanya, for whom he will never divorce... During the conflict at a youth construction site in Siberia, which he must repay, Novikov shows himself as an experienced dodger and a provocateur. Tanya's father, a war veteran and an honest worker, Ivan Dronov considers himself entitled to punish this scoundrel...

A dead hen becomes a problem between two neighbor families in Ajara (west Georgia). That leads to drama; a young guy is killed in the next quarrel.