This is a film about the Great Patriotic War, as the famous Russian writer Viktor Astafiev saw and knew it. A rare recording was made two years before his death. In it, he, not embarrassed in expressions, tells the whole bitter and terrible truth of the war that he went through as a simple soldier. The tape was awarded the Golden Eagle Prize of the National Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Russia as the best documentary film and the Laurel Branch Award as the best feature film.