Ivan Baukov's story "The Youth of My Friend" is, as it were, a biography of a rural young man who, once at a large construction site, becomes the master of his fate. Step by step, the author reveals more and more new features of the hero. In the first chapters of the story, we are dealing with a young man who thinks only about himself, lives for himself. But the new environment, the working team made him a different person. During the "assault" on Dneprostroy, he performs a feat. At the factory, he also cannot work from beep to beep, quit his job unfinished, and this master trait does not go unnoticed. Komsomol sends him to study.