Three teenagers from Bolshaya Okhta — a working-class district of Petersburg — enter the school of naval architecture, after graduating from which they become marine engineers. The teenagers’ surnames are Popov, Osminin, and Kolodkin. These are historically real people who later became figures of the Russian fleet.
In an engaging, lively manner, life and studies at the school are shown with all their dark sides, with the struggle of progressive forces against backwardness and arbitrariness. The historical basis of the novella allowed the author to reveal in detail not only scenes of life and daily routine at the “school of shipbuilders,” but also the setting and events in Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The “School of Naval Architecture” was the predecessor of the Naval Engineering School, later named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky, and since 1998 transformed into the Naval Engineering Institute.