Waldemar Szczepaniak

Ignacy Jan Paderewski returns to Poland. A journalist who is supposed to describe his arrival is called to the editorial office.

A Jewish child deported to Kazakhstan is saved and adopted by Kasym, an old Kazakh railway-man. Kasym gives him a Kazakh name, Sabyr, that in Kazakh language means humble. The child grows up in the small Kazakh village along with other deportees Vera, a traitor's wife, and Ezhik a Polish doctor. The Soviet militia harasses the poor peasants and Vera suffered the harassment of a bully cop: Bulgabi. Finally Vera accepts the marriage proposal of Ezhik but the jealous Bulgabi tries to prevent the marriage. The result is a fight in which Ezhik shoots himself accidentally. The old Kasym decides that Sabyr is now old enough to go to seek his real parents. At the end Sabyr, now an adult, decides to return to the village, but the village no longer exists because it was destroyed by a Soviet nuclear test.

Afonia's husband is an ex-boxer, an ex-inmate of a Nazi concentration camp and almost ex-living person as he is paralyzed after an accident. Her daughter is already married. And although Afonia's name is Russian, she is Polish. The only thing both heroines share is love to another strong, handsome and addictive man. A Russian man.