Young engineer Alexei Pokrovsky, a recent graduate of the Imperial Institute of Communications, receives an assignment to the grand construction project—the laying of the Trans-Siberian Railway mainline. For a young specialist, this is extremely important—perhaps even the work of an entire life—and Pokrovsky leaves for Siberia, into the Transbaikal steppes, together with hundreds and thousands of other builders and pioneers. Over time, the land beyond Lake Baikal becomes a second home for those who came from western provinces. After enduring hardships, illnesses, and the bloody turmoil of the first revolution—often even falling into conflict with themselves—Pokrovsky and his comrades achieve their main goal: to lay the iron road with high quality and on time, in the conditions of wild lack of roads, so that they could meet the first passenger train in Vladivostok on the shore of the Pacific Ocean.