The film tells the story of an ordinary guy Anton Kandidov. First he works on agricultural work — transports on boat on Volga watermelons. Noticing how deftly Anton catches and loads watermelons, he is told that he could become a goalkeeper and play football. And he decides to follow the advice. On the way to the glory of the goalkeeper and waiting for his victory and disappointment.

A young country girl who becomes an apple seller is seduced and abandoned. She finds a protector but when he is arrested for theft she finds honest work in a factory.

Central Asia during the Civil War. The Jarkent battalion of the Red Army, located in the Verny (now Alma-Ata), receives an order from Frunze to go to the Fergana region to fight the Basmachi. A group of kulaks, with the support of local merchants and beys, incites the unconscious, wavering mass of the Red Army to revolt. The anti-Soviet agitation of counter-revolutionaries, demagogically exploiting the mood of war weariness, provokes an open mutiny in the battalion.