Lena, a woman in her late twenties, loves her boyfriend, but in time comes to see that their relationship serves no useful function. What's more, she sees that her friends are for the most part empty-headed lackeys, causing her to wonder just what is the point of her life.
The film is set in the 1930s in the USSR. The film tells about one day of the construction of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. The heroes of the film are simple construction workers who are burning at work. Upon learning that their colleagues in Kharkov have set a record, they mobilize to break it. The entire construction site was engulfed in immense socialist competition. The teams are ready to complete the work on time at any cost. A Moscow journalist who has come to cover the scale of the great construction project is looking for the hero of his report...
1943 year. On the instructions of the military newspaper, the photojournalist Varvara Knyazhich goes to the front line to take some pictures of the knocked-down powerful German tank "Tiger". In a combat situation, she has to face a difficult relationship between officers and subordinates. During the execution of a journalistic assignment, Varya is literally two steps from death. But it is here that she is destined to find her love...
