The film tells about a love story worthy of the Decembrists. The story of a young Ukrainian writer-satirist Pavel Mikhailovich Gubenko and actress Varvara Alekseevna Maslyuchenko.

In 1933, the famous writer-feuilletonist Ostap Vishnya, like many people of his time, was arrested on false charges and sentenced to 10 years in camps. Ostap's wife, Varvara, writes to Maxim Gorky's wife and seeks the right to live next to her husband. The first year of life near the camp on the Kola Peninsula, the couple lives from date to date, but then the Cherry is transferred to another place, where even correspondence is prohibited. Judging by the film, five years pass like this. Varvara and her daughter are evicted from Arkhangelsk, and they move to the Ryazan region.

Ostap wanders around the camps, more than once finding himself on the verge of life and death, but he meets wonderful people. It was at this time that he writes in his diaries: "If I had not met wonderful people, wonderful doctors, I would not have been in the world."

In 1955 Ostap Vishnu was rehabilitated, and in 1956 he died in Kiev of a heart attack.

The film includes unique documentary footage of the farewell of Kiev residents with their favorite writer.