Based on real events. November 1943. The Nazis bring a new batch of Soviet orphans to Vyritsa, where a so-called "children's shelter" is set up in a former pioneer camp. The conditions here are unbearable: cold, hunger, forced labor, a punishment cell for disobedience, and execution for attempting to escape. But the worst thing is that children are used as blood donors for wounded Germans. Despite all the horror and inconceivability of what is happening, having united, the young heroes find the strength and courage to resist and decide to escape.
June 21, 1941. Young lieutenant Kolya Pluzhnikov, having received an appointment to a permanent place of service, arrives in Brest. The crowded waiting rooms of the station and the crowd of people weighed down with luggage do not alarm the young man, filled with joyful hopes. Kolya hurries to the location of his unit - the Brest Fortress... The soldier does not have time to enlist in the personnel of the military, and at four in the morning artillery explosions are heard - the war has begun. He was not enlisted in the ranks of the military personnel of the Brest Fortress, but still took part in the first battle in his life, which lasted ten months.
Russia as you have never seen before: from the bird's eye view. From Kaliningrad, to the Bering Strait, from the Icebreakers on the Polar Sea to the antelopes in the Kalmykia steppes, from the Caucasus peaks to the volcanoes of Kamchatka.
1899, the Christmas-time St.Petersburg. Ice-covered rivers and canals of the capital seethe with festive activities. On the eve of the new century those who should not be destined to meet, come together. They are people from different worlds: Matvey, the son of a lamplighter, whose only treasure is his silver-plated skates; Alice is the daughter of a high-ranking official dreaming of science. Each of them has his own difficult life-story, but having accidentally met they rush forward together in pursuit of their dreams.