Dasha is in the eighth grade. She is a very ordinary girl, she has no mother, she lives with her father and younger sister Ulyana. Her father works as a car mechanic and communicates with eccentric clients, and Dasha has to take care of her sister, in which her elderly neighbor Pavel sometimes helps her. Dasha loves to dream. She imagines that she lives in a fairy tale, and the people around her are her fairy tale characters. Once, lost in her dreams and telling her sister a fairy tale at night, she imagined everything so clearly that the fairy tale "came to life": Dasha became Cinderella, and Ulyana became Thumbelina.
Events are unfolding in one of the hot spots of the Russia. The heroes of the film returned from the war. They are winners and losers, because they have forgotten how to live in peace. The war is over, but it is close and still kills. And they want to live so passionately. But how?
Defeating the terrible dragon, the soldier Ivan returns from the war. The Far Far Away rejoices. The king, also Ivan, is very pleased. He awards the namesake with an order with pearls, appoints a field marshal and offers his wife his own daughter Maria Louise. But the soldier suddenly refuses everything.
A detachment of Red Army soldiers is ambushed, from where only the boy can escape.