1778. The Urals smoke with mining plants, for which there is only one road to Russia - the stormy Chusovaya River. But here barges with factory iron ruthlessly destroy the coastal rocks-fighters. The rafters, who conduct barges along the steppes of the river, have a way to avoid crashes: ask the elders for help, who rule the River from secret schismatic hermitages and hold in their fists a grandiose alloy of "iron caravans." However, the young rafter Ostasha, trying to unravel the reasons for the death of his father, raises a riot against the established order on Chusova. To return an honest name to himself and his father, he will have to find the treasury of Pugachev himself, hidden somewhere on the fighters... And the true "riot gold" is not a Pugachev treasure, but the answer to the question: how to do an impossible job and not lose your soul?