About the title
Based on the novel of the same name by Bruno Jasieński. 1932. Construction is underway on the Vakhsh Irrigation Canal in Tajikistan — one of the largest new construction projects of the first Five-Year Plan. Two Americans arrive here under contract. The seasoned spy Colonel Bailey (Boris Vinogradov), posing as a harmless traveler named Mr. Murry, will later be caught red-handed and exposed. Mr. Clark (Sergei Kurilov), who came to the canal to "make money," gradually becomes convinced that work and politics are not such different things after all. Though he does not accept socialism, he sincerely sympathizes with the enthusiasm of the Soviet people. His love for the interpreter, Komsomol member Maria Polozova (Izolda Izvitskaya), helps Clark make sense of what is happening. At the center of the events of this complex construction project is also the engineer Urtabayev (Gurminj Zavkibekov) — a strong, striking man, one of the first representatives of the Tajik intelligentsia. He is suspected of sabotage. However, Urtabayev is not the kind of man who "breaks"...