1904. The Russo-Japanese War. The army, along with its hospital convoy, is forced to retreat. Senior physician Sergey Karenin takes charge of the hospital and stops in a Chinese village from which nearly all the local residents have fled. Here, he operates on a wounded colonel. Upon hearing the surname «Karenin», the patient flinches painfully: the will of fate is truly inescapable. The wounded man’s name is Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky.