The student rowing team of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) was defeated in the competition. The coach drops the team and leaves, taking the best rowers with him. The remaining athletes decide to assemble a new team, and the management of the institute appoints a new coach for them — a teacher of hydrodynamics.

On the streets of the regional city, a cheerful holiday bustle reigns. The apartment of the Kupriyanovs is also noisy — friends of their youngest daughter Yulka are preparing for the New Year. The old driver Leonid Kupriyanov will not have to celebrate the holiday with his family, he should go on the next trip. Preparing for the New Year, none of the heroes imagined what dramatic events would fall on them, how difficult and unexpectedly the destinies of three families would intertwine, how difficult it would be to recover from their experiences ...

Early 50s. Frosts, unusual for the Black Sea coast, scathered orange trees used for breeding new varieties at the experimental botanical station. There is only one specimen left, and there is nothing to pollinate it with.