It is 1934. Muscovites are enjoying themselves. No more famine. Ration cards are to be cancelled in the nearest future. The first death sentences (“execution processes”) have been handed down. Nevertheless people are full of hope. Torgsin stores (Russian acronym for “trade with foreigners”) are in the thick of it. Wealthy Muscovites can buy anything here: holiday packages, foreign-made goods. Middleclass families buy holiday cakes. The poor loan their last possessions, earrings and rings, here not to die of hunger.
A young girl, Lida Sokolskaja, suspects that the director of the store, Victor Serebrov, is guilty of killing her family during the Civil War. He is the enemy. Lida gleans information about Serebrov’s past military experience but unwillingly the girl is gradually falling in love with him.