About the famous fortification scientist, Lieutenant General of Engineering Troops Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev. Before the war, he led the work on strengthening the Brest Fortress and the approaches to Leningrad. In 1940 he was 60 years old. The beginning of the war found him in Belorussia. After one of the battles, seriously wounded, he was taken prisoner to the Mauthausen camp, where he fought against fascism for 1320 days.

A school boy finds a fallen pilot in the forest during the fire started by enemies.

The student rowing team of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) was defeated in the competition. The coach drops the team and leaves, taking the best rowers with him. The remaining athletes decide to assemble a new team, and the management of the institute appoints a new coach for them — a teacher of hydrodynamics.

The parents of six-year-old Pavlik want to make an erudite out of their beloved son. They constantly force the boy to read a lot, study and achieve success. Mom and dad so want their son to be the first in everything. One day Pavlik comes to visit his grandmother in the village. Grandmother allows her grandson to go out alone for a walk. The walk turns into a fun journey for the young hero to Moscow...

Once on New Year's Eve, Gosha met a strange old man who called himself an inventor. He kept his last invention in a suitcase and willingly determined with the help of this device the area and degree of giftedness of each person. He predicted the career of a clown to Gosha, but Gosha did not believe it and, contrary to the recommendations, became a journalist.