Screen version of the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy.
Olenin, a student of the military school and representative of the golden youth of Saint Petersburg, leaves for the Caucasus hoping to discover a simple and romantic life there. His regiment is quartered in a Cossack village. He is disturbed by Marianne, the beautiful Cossack, and falls in love with her, which had never happened to him. But his friend Louka turns out to be his rival. During an armed clash with the Abreks, Louka is very seriously injured. Marianne rejects Olenin: he is not a Cossack!