Little dog Kashtanka is stolen, sold, tossed out into the street and saved by a clown. Young Fedyushka gets lost looking for the dog and ends up a prisoner of the sinister Mazamet who compels him to rove from house to house to make money, while Fedyushka’s father wanders through the streets in search of his lost child.

A travelling circus troupe during the Civil War. A kommissar tries to transfer the wagon into an agit-prop van. The Whites conquer the town. The kommissar hides among the artists.