Hoping to start a new life, repeat offender Sasha Medny decides to commit one last robbery. But everything doesn't go according to plan. Hiding from persecution on a train to Vladivostok, he appropriates the name and uniform of his compartment neighbor, Major Gavrilov. So a recent swindler becomes a guardian of order - the chief of police of provincial Ust-Shakhtinsk. By introducing his own rules in the city, Medny overturns the usual way of life of the Russian outback.