Ivan Lapshin, the head of the city’s Criminal Investigation Department in Unchansk, is portrayed with a clear, unyielding sense of duty as the story unfolds. Set in the 1930s and narrated years later by a boy who was only nine at the time, the film invites us into a world where crime, loyalty, and ordinary life intersect in a provincial setting. The CID is on the trail of Solovyov and his gang, whose brutal murders disrupt the uneasy calm of the city, testing Lapshin’s resolve and the cohesion of his team.
The film introduces Lapshin as a former participant in hostilities, a man who believes in decisive action and the necessity of making hard choices. His motto, spoken as a steady refrain that guides him and his comrades, captures the spirit of their work:
> "Let's clean up the land, plant a garden, and we ourselves will still have time to walk in this garden!"
Beyond the badge and the raids, the narrative paints a vivid portrait of daily life in a tight-knit, overcrowded living arrangement. Lapshin rents a small space in a communal apartment from the elderly Patrikeevna, sharing walls and routines with others who press close into a modest, shared existence. The atmosphere is drawn with warmth and quiet humor as four adults and a child navigate the cramped quarters, echoing the era’s social changes and the rough-edged optimism of the time.
Parallel to the crime investigations, the film threads a subtle but intimate love story into the fabric of the city’s life. A local theater actress, portrayed by Natasha Adasova, becomes entangled in a quiet, unspoken love triangle with Lapshin and the visiting journalist Khanin. Khanin and Lapshin have known each other for years, and while Lapshin’s genuine sympathy for the actress begins to complicate his judgments, she confesses a deeper affection for Khanin. The tension between duty and desire adds a human dimension to the pursuit of justice.
The ensemble around Lapshin also illuminates the provincial theater’s inner life during the post-NEP era. The film glimpses the troupe’s behind-the-scenes struggles as they wrestle with traditional classics on stage and the search for bolder, new subjects in art. A window into the theatre’s ambitions shows the characters balancing artistic exploration with practical demands, all while the communal apartment’s everyday grind continues to press in from the margins.
Central to these interwoven arcs is Okoshkin, a diligent UGRO employee whose single-minded drive to marry and move out of the crowded apartment becomes a running thread of comic relief and pathos. His intermittent flirtations with a future beyond the communal rooms offer a counterpoint to the harsher realities faced by Lapshin and his men, and he eventually returns to the life he knows.
Amid the personal dramas lies a deeper, more perilous strain in Khanin’s own life. After his wife’s death, he finds himself overwhelmed by despair and even attempts to end his pain with Lapshin’s pistol. The scene paves the way for a crisis that double-binds friendship and duty: Khanin’s desire to escape his sorrows, and Lapshin’s responsibility to the squad and to the law. When the moment of action arrives, Khanin’s instinct to run with Lapshin toward the danger of a gang operation clashes with his own limits. It is during the operation that the truth about Solovyov’s movements emerges; Khanin notices a silent departure from the barracks, a detail that proves crucial. Solovyov tries to surrender, but Lapshin’s resolve leads to a brutal outcome, and the pursuit ends with Solovyov being surrounded and, as per the code of the time, Lapshin carrying out the sentence.
After his hospital recovery, Khanin invites Lapshin to accompany him to the Far East and Siberia to “show places” Lapshin has never seen, but the offer is declined. The actress lingers in Unchansk, yet Lapshin’s stance toward their relationship hardens; he resolves to keep a respectful distance, recognizing that the demands of his work and the weight of his responsibilities require a certain emotional coolness.
The film’s storytelling layers together the grit of police work, the texture of communal living, and the fragile shimmer of personal longing. It presents a portrait of a city and a time when crime was a constant backdrop to ordinary life, and it does so through a narrator who remembers both the danger and the small, human moments that define a community. The result is a richly textured, emotionally restrained drama that honors its characters—Lapshin, Khanin, Natasha Adasova’s actress, the old Patrikeevna, and the others—without losing sight of the broader social and historical currents that shape their choices.
