Siberia, 1916-1917. Bolshevik Pyotr Sapozhkov is engaged in revolutionary propaganda and agitation in a small Siberian town after the end of his exile. He is assisted by his wife Varya. After the February Revolution, the Bolshevik party is still outlawed, Pyotr and Varya go into hiding and face arrest. The guards manage to capture their son Timu and the boy is taken to an orphanage.

The inhabitants of Chukotka are shown to be cruelly exploited before the revolution. Once Chukotka is visited by the representative of the Kamchatka Revolutionary Committee, Los, and the ethnographer Zhukov. The news of the arrival of the Russians immediately disperses along the coast. Contrary to the pressure of the American Thomson and the local "oligarch" Alitet in Chukotka, fair trade laws are established, as a result of which the Americans and Alitet leave Chukotka.