Sonya Gorodetskaya enters the Moscow Institute and makes plans for the future. Everything changes when she meets the Sveshnikov brothers, Kirill and Ivan. Both fall in love with Sonya. But if for Kirill the relationship with the heroine is the realization of his own ego, then for Ivan it is a real great feeling. Sonya chooses Ivan. But Kirill does not back down and is ready to do anything to get Sonya back. The rivalry of the brothers, as well as the dislike of their mother Lydiya Semyonovna, who connects all her connections so that Sonya disappears forever from the lives of her sons, lead to the fact that the lovers are separated for twenty long years.