Oleg, a veteran of the German Army, arrives in St. Petersburg at the call of his old comrade-in-arms Vladimir. Instead of the expected well-paid job and decent accommodation, he finds himself in a pine forest, where former army captains and majors live in tanks (their tank column, which the putschists sent to Leningrad, was stopped halfway and forgotten) and earn their living by dressing up as gypsies, while his friend is obsessed with private entrepreneurship. Moreover, both of them fall in love with Olga, a provincial girl who has come to study at a theater school.