Alyonka

Nine-year-old Alyonka leaves her parents and travels 500 kilometers to the district center to continue her education. The road is long and the travelers trade life stories that will become the film's backbone. This journey marks the start of the Virgin Lands setting entering Alyonka's world.

The newly established state farm where Alyonka arrives has no school yet. This absence highlights how quickly frontier life had to adapt to accommodate families and education. Alyonka's schooling becomes a central concern for the community and for her own future.

On the journey, the travelers exchange stories of their lives, loves, and losses. These vignettes begin to flavor the film as Alyonka's childlike narration frames each tale. The road itself becomes a moving stage for memories.

Elsa Kalnyn, a young dentist, moves from Riga after medical school to serve in the Virgin Lands. She finds her work hampered by a lack of a proper office and dental chair at the state farm's medical post. Her arrival underscores the improvisational spirit needed to establish healthcare in a frontier region.

Facing the scarcity of equipment, Elsa undertakes a bold trip to the district center of Aryk to procure what she needs. The journey highlights the infrastructural gaps that frontier settlements had to overcome. It shows the practical challenges doctors faced in expanding healthcare.

Alyonka decides to test the school and ends up with five failing grades. The episode mixes humor with a critique of frontier education. It also illustrates how a young student navigates new systems under pressure.

The elderly teacher Vitaminych fears the strain of educating in an improvised frontier school. Alyonka's antics sting but also reveal the teacher's dedication and vulnerability. This moment adds emotional depth to the education story in the Virgin Lands.

Lida, a city girl from Moscow, grows bored with life on a Komsomol construction site in Belogorsk. She travels to the Virgin Lands seeking new prospects with her husband Stepan Revun. Their experiences highlight the personal toll and variety of lives drawn to frontier work.

The couple's move to the Virgin Lands is complicated by the absence of a registry office (ZAGS) at the state farm. This absence affects their marriage dynamics and legal status in a rapidly developing community. The lack of civil infrastructure is a recurring frontier obstacle.

Vasilysa Petrovna's daughter Liza dies heroically while trying to save the seed reserves. The tragedy underscores the high stakes of agricultural work in the Virgin Lands. The community mourns yet continues to toil toward a promised future.

Despite the loss, Vasilysa’s other daughter, living in a Siberian village, resolves to take her late sister's place and come to the Virgin Lands. The decision embodies the sense of duty and renewal that characterizes frontier life. Her journey signals that the story will continue beyond the tragedy.

The film is structured as a series of vignettes recounted by Alyonka's childlike point of view. Each tale is introduced and woven into a larger mosaic by her innocent narration. This framing shapes how audiences experience the characters' lives.

All stories unfold against the backdrop of the Virgin Lands Campaign to cultivate the Kazakh steppes in the 1950s. People arrive from across the Soviet Union to new settlements, creating a world of hardship, solidarity, and rapid change. The film uses this setting to explore personal lives inside a large national project.