Vitaliy Medvedev

A movie about the gas mine workers in the scorching hot desert of Karakum, Turkmenistan.

In the summer of 1918, the situation in Transcaspia was especially difficult. The Menshevik government led by Funtikov seized power. Only the fortress city of Kushka remains Soviet. The garrison went over to the Bolshevik side. Large reserves of weapons and ammunition are concentrated in the fortress, which especially attracts the Mensheviks and the British who help them. The commander of the garrison, the former tsarist general Vostrosablin, decides not to surrender the fortress. To do this, he and Commissar Morgunov are developing a defense plan. White Colonel Zykov, with the support of the Basmachi and the British, hopes to take Kushka. But the tough confrontation between the parties ends with the victory of the defenders of the fortress.

Radio journalist Chary Atajanov, working with materials about Karakum sheep farmers, decides to make a reportage — the material itself is interesting and relevant. Considering that it is not necessary to go to the far shepherd's kosh, Chary hurries to finish the article and limit himself only to the material that has accumulated recently. However, the director of the local state farm, Kosaev, appears on the radio and, after a brief argument, takes Atajanov to the scene of the events...

Based on the play of the same name by M. Shatrov.