Russia, century XIX.
Two young nobles - Prince Andrei Alekseevich Vyazemsky and Count Pavel Nikolaevich Buturlin serve in the same regiment and participate in the war with Bonaparte. They save each other’s lives in battle more than once and become friends.
After being injured in the battle of Borodino, they end up in the hospital, where they are treated for wounds together. Friends give each other a word that they will never betray their friendship and even become related when they have children.
True, Count Buturlin is already growing up a little son, Alexander, who is only two years old, but the young Prince Vyazemsky is still single. Nevertheless, the prince willingly gives his word to a friend that if he has a daughter in the future, he will gladly give her for the son of his best friend.
Napoleon is defeated, the war is over. Friends travel to their estates, but continue to correspond and occasionally meet.
Prince Vyazemsky joins the Russian Embassy in Britain and marries the daughter of the English Duke. A son Michael is born in his family, and five years later, Adeline’s daughter.
The princely couple of Vyazemsky return to Russia, where he settles in St. Petersburg, in the family nest of Prince Andrei.
Years go by. Friends meet again at the court and recall their promise, especially since Prince Andrei now has a baby daughter. They enter into an engagement to their children when they reach marriageable age. The bridegroom at that time was twelve years old, and the bride was only two.
Three more years pass, and Prince Andrei discovers that his friend has joined the Northern Society, one of the communities of future “Decembrists,” who wants to establish a republic in Russia and abolish serfdom. Despite the persuasion of a friend, Count Buturlin is not going to give up his convictions, he firmly shares the republican views of his comrades in secret society.
Prince Andrew's appeals of prudence by the count are ignored. Friends quarrel. Members of secret societies open a police hunt. Prince Andrei does not abandon attempts to guide his friend on the true path, he accidentally becomes aware of the place where members of the community secretly meet, where he comes to, wanting to convince the friend of the danger of his activities for himself and his family. Without knowing it, the prince brings detectives with him.
Members of a secret society arrested. Prince Andrei barely succeeds in convincing the Emperor that he has nothing to do with the Northern Society, he is saved only by his high court position and strong family ties. However, his connections are not enough to save Count Buturlin.
Nicholas the First ascends the throne. The uprising on Senate Square is brutally crushed.
Count Buturlin is stripped of his title and nobility and is exiled with his family to Siberia without the right to return to Petersburg. The former count blames his friend for giving him to the authorities. Together with his wife and three children: son Alexander and two daughters - Olga and Anna, Buturlin leaves for Berezovo, a remote village in Western Siberia.
His family begins a life full of grief, deprivation and poverty, while Prince Andrei continues to live in the splendor and luxury of the court of Emperor Nicholas.
Prince Andrei Vyazemsky from a friend turns into a blood enemy of the Buturlin family, Pavel Buturlin inspires this idea to his only son - Alexander.
After six months in Siberia, the former Count Buturlin dies, and his sixteen-year-old son swears an oath at his father's tomb - to regain his family status in society and to take revenge on Prince Vyazemsky at all costs.