Fifty-year-old Vladimir Ivanovich Prokhorov, relieved of his worldly possessions, takes a journey back in time. Accompanied by a traveling companion barely half his age, he revisits the people and places of his youth and witnesses the dark forces that shaped the 20th century.
At the beginning of the war, the Germans throw their saboteur into the USSR. The landing is unsuccessful - the spy is captured by the NKVD. When trying to escape, a saboteur who turned out to be a Russian thief in law, accidentally remaining in the occupied territory, dies. In order to find the other spies involved in the operation, the security officers have to turn to the criminal's twin brother, a rural teacher. He takes the place of the deceased in the German intelligence network and enters into a deadly game...
A small village in the Russian campaign is inhabited only by few old women and a boy. When a family of refugees arrives they are at first opposed by the community, but eventually they'll be accepted and help revive the village.
