1921, the Volga region of Soviet Russia. The fighting of the Civil War has barely ended when a new catastrophe strikes the young Soviet republic. Drought has dried up the lands of the Volga region. The poor harvest has caused a mass famine. The Soviet government was not in a position to help the peasants in poverty.
To save his mother and his little brothers from starvation, the little peasant Micha Dodonov leaves with his friend Serioja to Tashkent to earn some money. On the way Serioja catches typhus and stays in the infirmary of one of the stations. Micha continues the journey alone. After enduring many privations and dangers that an adult would not bear, he arrives in Tashkent. There he finds a seasonal job in the vineyards of a lord and manages to receive his salary. With his money and a few bags of grain Micha returns to his native village. He finds only his exhausted mother alive. His little brothers Yasha and Fedya have died of hunger.
The young Micha is the embodiment of a people capable of facing the sometimes brutal changes of history while remaining faithful to its soul.
