One of the few Armenian fictions of the 1940s, this parable about the aftermath of World War II reveals the director's deeply humanistic vision, who finds the epic and the universal in minor and private subjects.
Immediately prior to the Russian Revolution, a young shepherd Seydo and his girlfriend Zare struggle for their right to a happy love in a Yazidi Kurdish village in Russian Armenia.
Village man Hambo, trying to set up his son Gikor, gives him in service of well-to-do merchant Bazaz Artem. Gikor couldn't find neither cordiality, nor kindness in merchant's house and misses his home. Some envy small bailiff but nobody see his sufferings.
The prince falls in love with an ordinary girl and marries her. Later, when enemies capture the prince, it's his young wife who gets him out of trouble.
A poor but honest fisherman Pepo opposes a cunning trader Zimzimov, who tries to rob him by trickery refusing to pay a lost bill. Pepo choses prison to paying-off his honour.
Atanes Ghambaryan, resident of Armenian border village, after the captivity during the World War II, turns up abroad in Turkey and dreams of returning to his homeland. During one of night patrols, border guard Armen who is in love with Ghambaryan's daughter Seda, recognizes him on the other side of the river Araks.
The film is about the civil war in the Zangezur (Syunik) province of Armenia in the early 1920s. The last Dashnak battalions headed by Sparapet Nzhdeh still opposed both the incursion of Red Army and the local Bolshevik partisans.