The film traces the rituals and relationships that bond a rural Russian community in a comic, but never caricatured fashion. A quiet shepherd, Nikolai Skuridin, is besieged by an abusive wife, and confides his despair to his horses and cows. he patiently waits to be admitted to a sanatorium for medical treatment. Chapuring, the town's work leader, embarks on a relentless campaign to curb the men's penchant for consuming large quantities of vodka. Even a lethal bunch of the stuff, resulting in a villager's death, proves to be no deterrent to the people's passion for drink. Distraught over the lack of available young men, one mother begins to correspond with a prison inmate on behalf of her daughter. When the intimidating ex-con Konstantin shows up, he threatens to disrupt any semblance of harmony among the villagers.