Private Bumbarash, considered lost in the First World War, suddenly returned to his native village, where no one recognizes, because the money for the memorial service a long time ago employed for other purposes. In a country already in full raging civil war in the tiny village of power is changing every half: red, white, anarchists, gangsters, again red and white for them again, and so on to infinity ... Amid all this chaos Bumbarash tries to arrange his life and personal happiness.
The Hero of the Soviet Union becomes a GULAG prisoner and then an Indian Chief.
Tolla is an unemployed translator whose wife is leaving him. Despondent and weak, he submits to the suggestion of an acquaintance to have a contract placed on the man that his wife is seeing. Instead, however, he arranges for the hit to be placed on himself. Before the contract is executed, he develops a relationship with a prostitute, and then changes his mind. In order to survive he takes the obvious course of action, which turns out to have possibly been unnecessary, and then he must deal with the guilt.
