In 1944 Bulgaria switches sides and joins the war against Germany. The story focuses on the advance of the Bulgarian army through Yugoslavia and Hungary, as well as its internal struggles.

April 1945. The Russian sniper Kolya joins the Bulgarian military contingent stationed in a Hungarian village. Kolya meets a Hungarian boy Yanush, with whom he shares his love of poetry. A German sniper is hiding in the woods and every day the death toll of the war grows higher. One day Yanush is killed by the German. Kolya seeks revenge.

A geologist engineer Yuliya disappears. Ablamov, an elderly engineer, organizes a rescue party to look after her in the mine galleries but they find nothing. Yuliya was last seen at a ceremony for award-wining miners. The newsreel crew was filming the event. Yuliya left in the middle of ceremony. Prodanov, a headstrong and quarrelsome engineer, had followed her. Suspicion falls on him. However, the film sequences shot at the ceremony reveal that Ablamov reacted suspiciously to Yuliya's exit. Detected as the murderer, Ablamov attempts to cross the border but is caught. Yuliya had discovered that the ore contained uranium. Ablamov had replaced the samples in order to prevent the development of the uranium ore deposit.

In this picture, the barrier epitomizes the line between reality and dreams, the pattern of harmony and happiness. The delicate, pretty, sensitive Dorotea and the sedate middle-aged composer Antoni meet by chance. He gives her shelter in his house. Famous composer falls under the spell of young Dorothea: A pretty, thin-skinned, though quite an eccentric girl.