Two strangers meet in an ambulance train during WWII.

A story about the beginning of life. Having lost their parents early, Alyosha and Nadya were not left alone - the father’s friend and the people around them helped the children remain kind and open in this difficult world of adults ...

On the outskirts of the provincial town, Yevdokim and Yevdokiya live, raising foster children. Yevdokim works at a factory, Yevdokiya is a housewife. The family seems to be safe and happy: the only trouble is that Yevdokiya cannot forget the love of her youth. This Yevdokim cannot stand and offers Yevdokiya freedom, while he will remain with the children. But all these contradictions are drowned in mutual love for children and for each other.

Leonid Pleshcheyev returned from the war blind. Against his will, he became a dependent. He drowns his grief in unrestrained drunkenness, thereby tormenting his wife Mariya and his teenage son Lyonka. Mariya finally decides to take her son and leave for Altai, but the boy runs away and returns to his father. So, together, they eke out a half-miserable existence until Grigoriy Shalagin, Pleshcheyev's longtime friend, returns from the army. It is he who awakens in Leonid the extinct self-esteem and pride of a soldier. Pity aside, he helps him get back to work.