On the evening of July 1, 1960, an American military aircraft was shot down over the Barents Sea, which violated the state border of the USSR. What did the RB-47 do in the Barents Sea near the borders of the USSR? How did the events of July 1, 1960 develop on the northern borders of the Soviet state and in Moscow? What was the fate of the surviving crew members of the American reconnaissance aircraft? What happened to the pilot Vasily Polyakov, who shot down the RB-47? The film includes an interview with a crew member of a reconnaissance aircraft, Vasily Polyakov, some materials from the still unclassified criminal case No. 45, film materials from the US State Archives.

The film tells about the history of the title "Hero of the Soviet Union", which existed from 1934 to 1991. During this period, about 12,700 people became heroes. The film tells about the first heroes of the Soviet Union, the pilots who saved the Chelyuskinites; the Estonian Arnold Meri, who received the title in the hardest summer of 1941; about the only woman tanker Marina Oktyabrskaya. But along with the heroic pages of the history of the title, the film does not ignore the negative side. For the first time, the truth is told about 28 Panfilov heroes and two Vlasov heroes, as well as the unique story of the impostor hero Valentin Purgin.

Roberto Bartini is a "man of mystery". Who was this Italian? Aircraft designer or mathematician, writer or artist? Or maybe, as some quite seriously claim, he was an alien? But whoever he really is, almost all historians agree that Roberto Bartini is a genius from the galaxy of Leonardo Da Vinci, Giordano Bruno and Galileo, great scientists born on the Apennine Peninsula. Having left his homeland in 1923 and, by the will of fate, finding himself in the Soviet Union, Bartini fully tasted all the joys and sorrows of life in the USSR. Before leaving Italy, he swore an oath to his comrades in the Italian Communist Party to dedicate his life to making red planes fly faster than black ones. Roberto Bartini remained faithful to this oath to the end.

A year before the famous meeting on the Elbe, Americans and Russians met in Poltava, in 1944, for the only time in history, US aviation was based on the territory of the Soviet Union.