Third-person narration. A lot of general remarks, arguments of a journalistic nature. The narrative is also interrupted by memories.

March. Ivan Petrovich - the driver. He just returned from work, tired. Suddenly he hears people screaming: fire.

The ORS warehouses are on fire. Ivan Petrovich frantically thinks what to take with him to extinguish the fire. He takes an ax with him. “A Russian man was always smart with a backward mind, and he always arranged himself in such a way that it was convenient to live and use, and not as more capable and easier to protect and save. And then, when the village was set up hastily, and even more so they did not think much: fleeing from the water, who thinks about the fire? ”

Both parts of the warehouse are burning: both food and industrial. Ivan Petrovich immediately noticed that the spontaneous fight against fire was led by two reliable people: Afonya and Semyon Koltsov. Rasputin describes fire as a living creature, the main property of which is greed, ferocity.

The authorities are gathering.

This village was built by the timber industry enterprise. It was built not for life, but for a while, until the next nomad. He will never become habitable. There are no trees, gardens.

No social facilities are being built in the village, because nobody needs anything. As long as there is work - a tree, but after 3-4 years it will not remain, the workers will work on a shift. There is no other work, all the fields were flooded during the construction of the hydroelectric power station.

The head of the site, Boris Timofeich Vodnikov, appears. Although he always swears with everyone, he knows how to lead, and you can rely on him.

Alena helps in extinguishing a fire no less than men: she saves some things.

Arkharovtsy - an organizational recruitment team (hired non-local workers). They are negative characters in the story.

Valya, the storekeeper, does not want to open a warehouse, because she is afraid that she will be presented with claims if the property is stolen in a panic. Boris Timofeevich orders the Arkharovites to break the warehouse. He is looking for the head of the OPC (warehouse), but recalls that he is at the next meeting. Ivan Petrovich advises to put a watchman and old man Hampo to prevent looting.

Sasha Ninth, one of the Arkharovites, says to the protagonist, stopping him in front of the fire: “Not here. Not here, citizen legalist. You’ll burn - who will have the right to download us ?! ” This is all their relationship. Arkharovtsy - carriers of camp concepts, representatives of the city, where everyone refers to work as a duty, to evade from which is a worthy cause. Therefore, they do not like Ivan Petrovich for his integrity. Arkharovtsy at Rasputin is an expression of the gloomy sides of civilization, progress.

Ivan Petrovich lived in the village of Egorovka, and his last name is Egorov. He fought as a tankman. People began to leave the village after the war - they knew about flooding in advance. But Ivan Petrovich remained, although it was hard to look at the empty village. He does not become a city dweller also because he marries Alain, his mother is ill. And brother Goshka, having left for the city, drank himself. In the end, he had to move to a new village - Sosnovka (where the events of the story take place). Ivan Petrovich thinks that he will have to move now, although he does not want to.

Ivan Petrovich breaks into one of the food depots. Abundant food supplies, gradually destroyed by the chaos of panic and heat, are described menacingly, hostilely. Ivan Petrovich catches himself with a grin: after all, there is always not enough food in all timber industry enterprises, where does it come from? “The food stores were crying, Japanese sweaters and native pans were crying - will there really be so much compared to what was left out there, in this hell ?! But the food depots, letting go of the right, could still be saved now, if there was a car and more order. But the "fire", the only one in the entire timber industry, two years ago was demolished for parts, it is only listed in service ... "

The author (or hero?) Discusses from what moment life went wrong. Everything changed when they started cutting down the forest. This is a work that does not require a soul, this is the destruction of not only the forest, but also of man. Sosnovka began as a normal village: there was mutual assistance, people talked to each other. But more and more “light” people began to come, who did not want to get an economy, but worked only for recreation, food and drink. If earlier they drank, embarrassed by this, now whole "brigades" with their leaders have appeared. The social situation is worsening, crime is growing. The principal of the school, Yuri Andreevich, counted: as many villagers perished during the war as they did not die by their death in young Sosnovka.

Sosnovka does not like conscientious people. The forester Andrei Solodov once fined the timber industry for too high stumps, which is why his salary was severely delayed. After that, his bathhouse burned out and his horse disappeared. A similar attitude to Ivan Petrovich. He tried to prove to the head of the site that the matter was not in the plan, but in people, in natural resources. But the boss has his own concerns and his superiors. Therefore, he has to give workers vodka at his own expense so that they make a plan.

Ivan Petrovich lives in a world of absolute values ​​and is ready to defend them actively. But another life position is also presented. Afonya Bronnikov, also from Yegorovka, also an honest man, says: “I think so: I work honestly, I live honestly, I do not steal, I do not hunt - and that's enough. Our business is to live correctly, to set an example with life, and not to drive a stick into your flock. There will be no sense from a stick. ” Obviously, Rasputin does not agree with this position. Through the lips of Ivan Petrovich, he says: “Why, they were late, they were late with an example! Late!"

When the fire crept up to the vodka, the locals and the Arkharovites showed miracles of organization: they pass the bottles along the chain, saving them and drinking along the way. Ivan Petrovich alone saves vegetable oil. Athos drags him to save flour. Someone screams only when he wakes up: "Goriiim!"

Rasputin describes the psychological drama in the soul of Ivan Petrovich. Life has changed. The values ​​of the hero are no longer recognized by society as absolute. But he cannot refuse them and cannot understand the present.

Ivan Petrovich continues to save flour and sugar. He understands that it will not be possible to save everything, but there are no assistants. He begins to break the fence. And here, oddly enough, Sasha the Ninth comes to his aid.

Ivan Petrovich runs into Alena. They watch in horror as they plunder the remnants of a food store.

With Alyona they live 32 years. 2 years ago, on the 30th anniversary of the wedding, they decided to visit the children, two daughters and a son. One daughter is a teacher in a village. The second daughter is in Irkutsk. My son is a pilot in the village of Syrniki near Khabarovsk. Most of all, Ivan Petrovich liked his son: his son watches the house, grows apples, makes friends with neighbors, relatives of his wife. Therefore, when he invited his parents to move to him, Ivan Petrovich agreed.

Sosnovka can’t be saved. It all started with the arrival of the last brigade of the Arkharovites a year ago. They are very united, aggressive. Ivan Petrovich tried to put them in their place, but was nearly killed (they wanted to adjust the accident).

Alena worked in the library. Ivan Petrovich himself did not notice when, but his wife became an integral part of his own personality. Rasputin idealizes their relationship: full understanding. And on the issue of departure, she had the same opinion: it was necessary to leave, but somehow not hunting.

Ivan Petrovich is helped to carry flour. But suddenly the assistants disappear. Occasionally drunk Arkharovites appear, but they are no longer capable of anything. Work Ivan Petrovich and Afonya, as well as Panteleev. Soon there is no time left to take the bags away, they throw right away at the warehouse. Ivan Petrovich is getting dark in his eyes.

Uncle Misha Hampo has been paralyzed since childhood. His hand did not work, his speech was disturbed. But “to understand each other, a lot of words are not necessary. A lot is needed - not to understand. ” Everyone loved Hampo. He was hardworking. The wife died long ago, lived alone. He always worked as a watchman, almost for free - Rasputin puts a symbolic meaning into it: Hampo is the keeper of values. When the theft took hold, even he, the most conscientious, had to get used to it.

The life of Ivan Petrovich in Sosnovka loses its meaning. He cannot work only for prosperity. Work for him is the creation of something eternal. The moral foundations are destroyed, everything is mixed up: good and evil. Once Afonya asked Ivan Petrovich why he was leaving. Ivan Petrovich replied that he was tired. Afonya regrets: who will remain, what about Yegorovka? Ivan Petrovich wanted to answer that Yegorovka is in each of us. But Afonya had in mind only his bizarre idea to erect a monument to Yegorovka on the surface of the reservoir.

The stronger the fire, the more assistants. They manage to save the flour, although almost all the participants have drunk. Valya the housekeeper yells about the fact that a lot has been stolen, and she must answer. Ivan Petrovich is already losing consciousness, he needs to rest. In a drunken stupor, the Arkharovites with a mallet kill Hampo, but Hampo manages to crush one of them (Sonya). Two corpses lie.

The morning is coming. Now there will be many commissions, the empty ashes are cordoned off. Ivan Petrovich goes to Athos with the question: what to do now? Athos says: we will live. Ivan Petrovich agrees.

Ivan Petrovich goes to the spring forest to rest there and calm down. He feels the awakening of the earth and all nature. And he expects the earth to indicate where to go to him, a lost person.