In post-Civil War 1923, Dyuishen, a young Red Army veteran, is sent to the mountainous Kirghiz region of Kyrgyzstan to establish the first school. The former soldier becomes a teacher, bringing Leninist doctrine to the remote Moslem area where elders forbade children to attend school. He falls in love with one of his students, but the young woman is sold by her father to a wealthy chieftain.