The huge dirty room of the school. Classes are over, and the Bursaks have fun with games.

More recently, the "period of forced education" ended, when everyone, regardless of age, had to take a full course of science. Now the “law of great age” has begun to operate - upon reaching a certain age, Bursak is expelled from school, and he can become a scribe, clerk, novice. Many cannot find a place. Rumor has it that these will be taken as soldiers.

There are more than a hundred people in the class. Among them are twelve-year-old children and adults. They play "pebbles", "habits", "lean", "fast-paced". All games are inevitably associated with causing each other pain: tweaks, clicks, bumps, and so on.

Nobody wants to play with Semenov, a sixteen-year-old boy, the son of a parish priest. Everyone knows that Semenov is a fiscal. It gets dark in the classroom. Bursaks have a good time singing, make noisy games in the "small pile", but suddenly everything subsides. In the darkness you hear: someone is being whipped. This comrades punish fiscal Semenov. Embittered Semenov runs to complain.

Classes begin. Someone is sleeping, someone is talking ... The main method of Bursat’s study is meaningless “dolby”, cramming. Therefore, no one wants to learn.

An inspector and Semenov appear in the class, complaining about their offenders. One of them, by order of the inspector, is whipped and promised to carve every tenth student the next day. Bursaks decide to take revenge on Semenov. At night, they insert a “pfimfu,” that is, a cone with burning cotton, into his nose. Semenov goes to the hospital, and he himself does not know what happened to him. By order of the authorities, many are whipped, and many in vain.

Early morning. Bursat bedroom. Pupils are awakened and taken to the bathhouse. They walk through the city with a noise, quarreling with all passers-by. After the bath, they scatter around the city in search of what is bad. At the same time, the Bursaks nicknamed Aksyut and Satan are especially different. After eating stolen goods, the Bursaks are in a good mood and tell each other stories about the old times of the Bursa in the class: about the tricks of the Bursaks, about how they used to ...

Classes begin. Teacher Ivan Mikhailovich Lobov first cuts Aksyuta, who has not learned a lesson, then asks others, distributing punishments. During class he has breakfast. Lesson Lobov never explains. The next lesson, Latin, is taught by teacher Dolbezhin. He also beats everyone, but his students love: Dol-bezhin is honest, does not take bribes and does not favor fiscals. The third teacher, nicknamed Old Man, is especially furious when drunk: along with flogging, he also applies other, more sophisticated, physical punishments.

Aksyutka is hungry: Lobov ordered to leave him without lunch until he goes to Kamchatka. Aksyutka then studies well and sits at the first desk, but she does not study at all. Lobov was tired of such changes: he prefers that Aksyutka never study.

In the courtyard of the school, two women - an old woman and a thirty-year-old - are waiting for the director and rushing at his feet. It turns out that this is a “fixed bride” with her mother, who came “for the suitors”. The fact is that after the death of a clergyman, his place is “assigned” to the family, that is, it passes to someone who agrees to marry his daughter. The clerk and daughter have to go bursa to find a “breadwinner”.

A new type of teacher is emerging in bursa. Among them are Pyotr Fedorovich Krasnov. Compared to others, he is a kind and delicate person, he opposes too cruel punishments, but he abuses moral punishments, mocking ignorant students in front of the whole class.

Aksyutka together with another student, nicknamed Satan, manages to steal bread from the Bursatian breadbasket of the Chain. Aksyutka drives the Chain out of himself, he chases after the arrogant bursak, and in the meantime Satan steals bread.

The attendant calls the grooms to watch the bride. The authorities recognize the suitors of Wassendu, Azinus, Aksyutka as suitable. The first two are the inhabitants of Kamchatka, engaged only in church sciences. Wassenda - a practical, solid man, Azinus - stupid, careless. Bursaks go to the bride. Wassende does not like the bride and the place, Azinus decides to marry, although the bride is much older than him. Aksyutka simply called himself the groom to eat at the bride and pull something.

And in a bursa they are starting a new game - a parody of a wedding ...

From early childhood, Karas dreamed of a bursa, for its older brothers were Bursaks and were very important to it. When a newcomer Karas is brought to a bursa, he rejoices. But ridicule, various mockery from the comrades immediately pour on him. On the first day he was whipped. Crucian enters the seminary choir. Instead of singing, he tries only to open his mouth. The comrades “name” him Karas, the “criticism” ceremony is very offensive, Karas fights with offenders, and Lobov, who caused the fight scene, orders Karas to be carved. This cruel flogging makes a turning point in Karas’s soul - there is a terrible hatred of the bursa, dreams of revenge.

The student, nicknamed Silych, the first hero of the class, declares that he will patronize Karasu so that no one dares to offend him. Under this protection, Karasu becomes easier to live. He himself is trying to protect the “oppressed,” especially the Bursatian fools. Karas resolutely denies the Bursatian science, does not want to study.

Vsevolod Vasilievich Razumnikov, a teacher of church singing, the law of God and sacred history, is a rather progressive teacher: he introduces a system of mutual learning. But Karas cannot comprehend church singing, and Razumnikov punishes him: he does not let him go home on Sundays. Over Karas there is a danger that he will not be allowed to go home for Easter.

Arithmetic teacher comes, Pavel Alekseevich Livanov. He is helpless in a drunken state, and the Bursaks mock him.

On Saturday, Karas gets up all sorts of disgraces with annoyance that he is not allowed to go home. Sunday passes in a bursa, and Karas begins to think of flight. He heard that some of the younger “runners” were caught, but forgiven, others were carved, but still they didn’t notice that somewhere in the wood yard the fugitives were “saved”. But on the same day they bring the captured "runner" Menshinsky. He is whipped to a pulp and then taken to the hospital on a matting mat. Crucian leaves thoughts of flight. He decides to “escape” from church singing in the hospital. He manages to get sick, a terrible lesson passes without him, and on Easter Karasy is sent home ...

A new ranger appears in the bursa. The former, nicknamed Stargazer, was a good man and, not enduring the horrors of the bursa, preferred to retire to his apartment, which made him more mysterious in the eyes of the Bursaks. In general, by this time, a lot had changed in the bursa: the punishments had softened, the bursaks became too old ...