Cheerful and mischievous lad Gritsko offers young Parasya his hand and his heart on the first day of the fair in Sorochyntsi. The girl's father, Cherevik, presents no objection – her stepmother, however, is furious, and refuses to recognise their relationship; Cherevik drunkenly relents. Gritsko alone bemoans his sadness, whereupon a gypsy presents him a deal – Gritsko will sell his oxen to the gypsy if the latter can successfully make Parasya's parents accept their union.

During the retreat from Baku in 1920, prisoners of the White Army counterintelligence are dropped off on an uninhabited island in the Caspian Sea, where they are left to die of hunger and thirst. Four of them—the Bolsheviks Miller, Zanoza, Nesterova, and the scientist Shatsky—manage to escape.