: A schoolboy from the Altai state farm ends up in Moscow and finds a father who has not lived with them for a long time. The father turns out to be a boastful liar, but the boy hopes that he will change and return to him.
Storyline
- A 12-year-old schoolboy Seva from Altai goes to Artek. He wants to find a father who has left his family and lives in Moscow.
- Seva hesitates to send a telegram to his father. He buys him a vase as a gift.
- At a transplant in Moscow, Seva runs away from the counselor.
- On the bus, the boy rides without a ticket. The bus driver saves Seva from a fine and lets go.
- The house where Seva's father lived was demolished. He finds out his father’s new address at the information desk.
- With a gasp, Seva finds himself in the middle of the street and becomes the culprit of the accident.
- The driver wants to force the boy's parents to pay for the repair.
- Seva confesses to the driver that he is looking for his father, and he lets him go.
- Father is not at home. In the courtyard Seva met with the guys. With their help, he ends up in his father’s apartment, but he does not recognize him.
- Having learned that Seva is from Altai, the father indulges in memories in which there is not a word of truth. The boy is disappointed and leaves without opening.
- On the train, Seva hopes that someday her father will recover, remember her son and return.
Summary
Twelve-year-old pioneer Seva Scheglov has been living in the Altai state farm since its foundation. He remembers how his parents huddled in a snow-covered tent and raised virgin lands. Now their state farm is considered the best in Altai. This summer, Seva is allocated a ticket to Artek. The boy understands that he is not worthy of such an honor. He composes a lot and gives people apt, but insulting nicknames. So, he calls his classroom “Goddess of hosts”: she, like the ancient god of hosts, is one in three persons - a pioneer leader, teacher and editor-in-chief of the newspaper. However, the boy cannot refuse the trip: The boy has a secret goal - to find his father.
Once Seva's parents lived in Moscow. After graduating from college, the boy’s mother went to the virgin lands by a livestock specialist. Father worked as a chauffeur at the state farm for some time, and then returned to Moscow, leaving his wife and little son. Mother told Seva that his father was a bouncer, never kept his promises, let his friends down a lot, and considered himself to be “poetic nature”. Nevertheless, Seva wants to meet with him. Upon learning that there will be a transplant on the way to Artek in Moscow, the boy decides to escape and find his father.
A large group of guys are traveling with Seva on the train. They are accompanied by counselor Natasha. She is so vigilant that Seva calls her "Detective." At one of the stops, Seva wants to send a telegram to her father, but Natasha is always nearby, and the boy does not dare to do this. At the station kiosk, he buys a gift to his father - an earthenware vase with two bright roosters.
In Moscow, it turns out that there are several free hours between transfers.Natasha leads a detachment for a walk. On the forecourt, Seva pretends to have a cord untied, he lags behind the guys and gets on the first bus that comes across. He doesn’t buy a ticket - he has no trifles, only a three-ruble note. This is noticed by the female controller and begins to resent: with luggage, but did not pay for the ticket. She is going to fine Seva, but then the bus driver intervenes and lets the boy go.
Seva finds a dead end where his father lives, but the right house is not there. An old man sitting on a bench in the park informs the boy that the house was demolished and advises him to find out the address at the information desk. Having made an application, the boy returns to the square, but the old man he knows is already gone. Instead, a sad girl sits on a bench. Seva tells her about the beauties of Altai and campaigns to come to their state farm. This is the chairman’s request: anyone traveling west should bring a person with them. Here comes the guy with whom the girl quarreled, and banishes the "agitator."
Seva absentmindedly goes to the middle of the roadway. A taxi jumps out from around the corner, turns sharply, hits a pole and rips off the paint from the wing. An angry driver grabs Seva by the scruff of the neck. He intends to get his parents to pay for repairs. The driver does not mind that Seva is from Altai. He takes three rubles from the boy and takes him to the garage so that the manager draws up an official letter to his parents. The driver is so greedy that he does not want to go empty and takes passengers. All Seva met on that day agitates to go to Altai and says that he is looking for a father. Listening to Seva, the driver darkens and gets angry.In the end, he surrenders, gives Seva a three-ruble note, sends for ice cream, and he leaves, leaving a vase on the sidewalk.
Seva gets to his father at the address received at the information desk. The father is not at home, and the boy decides to wait in the yard, where he meets a peer boy. He knows Uncle Misha, Sevino’s father, and undertakes to introduce them.
Arriving soon, Uncle Misha does not pay attention to the unfamiliar kid and hides in the apartment. Seva cannot just come up and tell him who he is. The boy first wants to talk in private with his father. Then a new friend calls his ex-girlfriend, and she comes up with the idea of entering Uncle Misha’s apartment under the pretext of collecting waste paper.
Shyness again attacks Seva in his father’s apartment. He writes a note on a piece of newspaper, throws it in a vase, puts the vase in a corner and leaves with the guys. Uncle Misha notices a vase and calls Seva through the window. The boy returns alone, they are talking. Father finds out that Seva came from Altai, and begins to remember the past, posing as a virgin hero.
Seva does not find a word of truth in his father's stories. The boy becomes “bored and bored," and he leaves without ever opening his father. Vazu Seva leaves new friends to meet them again on the way back.
Seva manages to catch a train to Artek. In the carriage, he thinks about his father, about his unfulfilled dreams. Then he recalls: his father said that he was going to return. Seva awakens hope. Father for him is like a faint light in the steppe, and someday he will reach him.
