A young woman Irina, a businesswoman, brings up her 10-year-old son Kirill alone. And everything seems to be good: there is money, an apartment in the center, the son studies in college.... But the boy catastrophically lacks a father. He envies his peers who have a father and suffers a lot....

At the beginning of the XVII century, events take place preceding the liberation struggle led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky. A young boy Pavlo Pokhylenko leaves his native Kaniv to join the Zaporizhian Sich (camp and cossack army) to fight for freedom and the Orthodox faith.