Their adult life begins in the eighties. Alexander Akentyev has the nickname Pereplet not because he works in a bookbinding shop. He has a talent for getting away with it. He could have been sent to Afghanistan, but he marries the daughter of a high-ranking military man and makes a rapid career in the city administration. His classmate Kirill Markov is himself the son of a big boss, but does not seek to follow his father’s beaten path. Having gone through the purgatory of state security and a psychiatric hospital, he leaves the country and becomes an actor. Markov’s institute friend, Vadim Ivolgin, is an engineer, barely making ends meet and raising his daughter alone. The girl is seriously ill; surgery is only possible abroad. A chance to save the child appears when Vadim’s ex-wife, who abandoned them several years ago, unexpectedly arrives from England. Life has tested them with fire and water, mercilessly throwing them into the whirlpools of events and the fires of time. But the city where they were born will sooner or later return the children of the white nights.