1914 Baku in Azerbaijan is the largest oil basin at the turn of the century. Cezary Baryka, the son of Seweryn Baryka, a Polish engineer employed in a large oil company, and Jadwiga Barykowa, who, despite many years spent in Baku, still misses her home town of Drohiczyn, its pond and its chapel, lives in this cosmopolitan city. Czarek is friends with his classmates: Tachir, who is an Azerbaijani, Vartan, an Armenian, Yasha, a Jew, and Sasha, a Russian. The friends promise each other that after finishing school they will stay here and sail on tankers. But for now, they are enjoying the freedom and the carefree years of their youth, spending their free time together and making mischief, embarrassing the school principal. Cezary Baryka experiences his first love, he shyly confesses to his mother that he is in love with the beautiful Armenian woman Aida, Wartan's sister, and Jadwiga accepts her son's choice.—G