North Caucasus, XIX century. Abrek-Ossetian Jigo learns that only two men remain in his family — he and his nephew Akhsar. The highlander decides to take revenge on the Dudarov’s family, whose representative killed his brother. However, the difficult financial situation forces Jigo to go to Mozdok, where he is going to exchange cheese for grain with his kunak, the Terek Cossack Stepan. He loads the cart and, together with his nephew, goes to the Russian fortress.
After getting robbed and hoodwinked by a trio of criminals, a highlander finds an ingenious way to exact his revenge.
This story starts in 1980 in Paris as the memories of Andrei Borodin, a Soviet agent, take the action back to 1943 during the Teheran meetings of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. A high-ranking Nazi officer developed a plan to assassinate the three world leaders in order to undermine the Allied forces. He commissioned the German agent Max Richard to carry out his plan, but it failed miserably due to the quick action and thinking of Andrei. While in Teheran, Andrei met a French woman, Marie Louni, living in the city and they had a brief but intense affair. Nearly four decades later, the Nazi officer has been captured - but not for long. Freed by terrorists, the officer is hunting down the German agent who failed to carry out the planned assassinations. Max lives at Françoise, a young French woman, who hides him.
The man, after a lot of jokes on his side, accuses his wife of giving birth to only girls, but she tells him that the heirs deserve fathers like real men, and leaves, taking daughters with her. Her husband's friends are trying to reconcile them, but the proud mountain woman does not intend to return home.