Shortly before the outbreak of WWI, a peasant from rural Russia arrives in St. Petersburg to find work.
The last and only surviving silent film by director and actor Yevgeny Chervyakov. The film adaptation is distinguished by the accuracy of the psychological characteristics of the numerous characters (Chervyakov himself played the episodic role of an officer magnificently), the detail of everyday sketches of life in Germany and Russia, and the conveyance of the atmosphere of the events of the First World War and the Civil War. Parts 3 and 5 of the film have been lost.
In a small Tatar village during the traditional holiday of the beginning of plowing, monks appear accompanied by soldiers. Trying to convert the local population to Orthodoxy by force, the monks and soldiers meet a tough rebuff from the locals. The wife of the peasant Bulat dies, and his son Asfan is taken away in an unknown direction.
