In the summer of 1936, people were enjoying the holiday commemorating the sixth anniversary of the launch of the "Stalin" hot air balloon. The Red Army commander and battle hero Kotov, his wife Marusa, and his youngest daughter Nadia came to the country house for vacation. This spacious and luxurious bungalow is the legacy of Marousa’s father, Boris, a famous musician during the Tsarist Russia period. Before lunch, a man with long hair and beard and sunglasses walked into the villa. When this person removed the makeup from his face one by one, people excitedly recognized him as Boris's former protégé Midya. He has been away from this home for ten years, and no one knows his whereabouts. Midya lent the little girl Nadia to tell a story as a reason for telling the experience of the past ten years: He planned to marry his beloved Marusa and lead a peaceful pastoral life. But an instruction from the Red Army put him in a dilemma: either go to Paris to spy for the Soviet Union, or stay in the country and start an endless life behind bars. Midya chose the former in order to be able to return to Marousa as soon as possible, but he didn't expect that it would take ten years to leave. When he came to this house that should have belonged to him now, he found that everything was nothing but wrong. Midya also revealed a bigger secret: the man who ordered him to leave the country was Kotov, the husband of Marousa, the owner of the villa. After talking about everything, Midya privately revealed to Kotov the true purpose of the trip: two hours later, he and several other secret police will arrest Kotov on charges of treason. To a certain extent, this is revenge for Kotov's forcibly enlisting him in the army and taking Marusa away. Kotov was convinced that Midya's arrest was nothing more than a personal vendetta, and relying on his reputation and his close relationship with Stalin, the secret police would never dare to touch him.
Kotov calmly handled the rest of the time, playing football with friends and accepting salutes from the young pioneers according to the original arrangement. Two hours later, a black car full of NKVD agents arrived. Before leaving, Kotov calmly played hide-and-seek with Nadia. In the car, Kotov's self-confidence was still unshakable. He told the agents that he could call Stalin that night. The agents were destroying his future if they dare to arrest him. However, when he tried to leave the black car, the agents fisted Kotov so hard that Kotov understood who was really going to arrest him. The huge portrait of Stalin in front of the car was hung up by balloons. The portrait of the leader who covered the sky curled and deformed with the wind, looking hideous and terrifying. In the car, Kotov, who was beaten bloody, shed tears. Returning to the apartment in Moscow, Midya committed suicide by cutting her wrists with a razor in the bathtub. At the same time, Kotov was shot to death shortly after his arrest; Marusa was sentenced to ten years in prison and died in a concentration camp; Nadia, who was imprisoned with her mother, eventually lived in Montenegro and worked in music education. In 1956, Khrushchev vindicated Kotov's treason.
