Three friends - Alexey Maksimov, Vladislav Karpov and Alexander Zelenin - graduate from the Leningrad Medical Institute. The guys are friends from the first year, despite the difference in characters and temperaments: Maximov is sharp, ironic, internally vulnerable and therefore “closed”, Karpov is cheerful, a favorite of girls, Zelenin is a little funny, impetuous, honest and polite. In anticipation of the distribution and the inevitable departure from Leningrad, they argue about the future, about the appointment of a doctor. Sasha Zelenin believes that each of them should continue the work of their ancestors in the name of descendants. He himself asks for an appointment to the village of Kruglogorye, which is a two-day drive from Leningrad. Alexey and Vladik accept the unexpected offer of the head of the medical department of the Baltic Shipping Company, who is recruiting ship's doctors.
Vladik Karpov has long been in love with classmate Vera. But Vera recently married associate professor Veselin, and Vladik is trying to forget her. On the last day before leaving for Kruglogorie, Sasha Zelenin met with Moscow student Inna and fell in love with her.
Contrary to their expectations, Maximov and Karpov do not go on a long voyage. They enter the disposal of the sanitary-quarantine department of the seaport. They have to conduct quarantine measures on arriving ships.The guys are a little disappointed with the routine of their future work, but they conscientiously get to work. They are accommodated in a quarantine service dormitory.
Maximov wants to live interestingly, squeeze everything out of his youth. He is decent, ready for decisive actions, but wants to answer for them only before his conscience, and not before fetishes.
Having hardly arrived in Kruglogorie, Sasha Zelenin is operating a wounded worker from a sawmill. He is helped by a young nurse Dasha Guryanova. Dasha likes the young doctor, and Sasha is not indifferent to her, although his heart belongs to an almost unfamiliar Inna. The former criminal in love with Dasha, Fyodor Bugrov, is fraught with anger at the new doctor, who also exposed him as a simulator, fading from work.
Sasha works with passion and soon gains general respect. He operates a lot, travels to the surrounding villages, organizes a laboratory and an X-ray room in the hospital, and even treats the hospital coachman for alcoholism. He also participates in the public life of the village, gives lectures at the club. Once he has to fly by helicopter to a forest house where a bear lifted a forester. Inna often calls Sasha from Moscow. Soon she arrives in Kruglogorie, and they celebrate the wedding.
Sasha is friends with the chairman of the local council, a war invalid Egorov. They argue about the life values of different generations. About his peers and friends, Sasha says: “And we, city guys, who are a bit ironic towards everything in the world, lovers of jazz, sports, fashionable rags, we, who at times writhe out of ourselves, the devil knows that, but we aren’t trapping, we don’t trust , do not impersonate, do not parasitize, and, being afraid of high words, we try to keep our souls clean ... ”
Maximov and Karpov have a lot of work in the port. Maximov manages to expose the machinations of warehouse workers. But both friends dream of finally getting ship assignments. In their free time, they go to theaters, to exhibitions and eagerly drink in friendly companies. Maximov often happens in a public library. Here he once meets Vera Veselina and finally admits that he always loved her. Vera reciprocates, but cannot leave her husband and work at the department of the medical institute. Maximov hides his feeling from Vladik Karpov until he admits that his love for Vera has passed. Amorous uncertainty is resolved when Maximov finally receives an assignment to the ship. Before leaving for swimming, friends decide to visit Sasha Zelenin. Sasha is pleased with the arrival of friends. The guys not only relax in Kruglogorie, but also advise patients. The joy of a friendly meeting ends tragically: felon Fedor Bugrov out of revenge seriously injures Sasha with a knife. The life of a friend hangs in the balance, but Maximov and Karpov manage to conduct a successful operation. At the bedside of a rescued friend, they realize their life’s purpose. They are doctors, they have to repel the attacks of death from people. Finally, Maximov understands that Sasha is right: in order not to be afraid of death, one must feel his connection with the past and the future.
