This colourful, music-filled and sensual melodrama based on early stories by Maxim Gorky tells the fatal love story between the beautiful and rebellious girl Rada and the handsome horse thief Zobar. The story is set in early 20th century Bessarabia, now part of Moldova, then belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Leader of a traveling gypsy band from the steppes of Bessarabia (now Moldova), Toma Alistar is a skilled violinist whose fame takes him on tours around European capitals and royal courts. He remains obsessed with his first love, beautiful Leanca who was married elsewhere while Toma was traveling, and spends his life and fortune trying to find her.
To save their flocks from the heat and the sun, the shepherds of a Soviet cooperative farm decide to take them to a fertile but remote place. A journalist and the beautiful daughter of one of them accompany them in their long journey. Folklore melodrama praising the truth and the beauty inherently tied to nature and folk rituals.
