The film takes place between two revolutions - 1905 and 1917. There is no agreement in the family of the Kolomiytsev brothers, bankrupt nobles. The elder brother Yakov is mortally ill. The youngest, Ivan, a gendarme colonel, is completely confused and does not know how to get out of the situation created in the family.
About how the boys of the Kabardian village help adults to raise fleet-footed horses.
About the childhood years of the hero of the Civil War, Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Budyonny.