The American narrator describes his grandfather, a Russian who killed two Germans before the age of eighteen.

Lev and his rooftop friends find a dead German parachutist on the ground and loot the body.

Soldiers catch Lev with the stolen knife; his friends escape but Lev is arrested for looting.

A bold, talkative soldier named Kolya is brought into Lev's prison cell, arrested for alleged desertion.

Colonel Grechko offers Lev and Kolya their freedom if they find a dozen eggs by Thursday.

A cannibal lures Lev and Kolya into his apartment building with the false promise of eggs.

Kolya attacks the cannibal's wife and steers Lev out of the building, saving his life.

Lev and Kolya return to his apartment block, the Kirov, only to find it destroyed by bombs.

Lev and Kolya set off on a fifty-kilometer walk toward Mga, deep inside German-held territory.

Russian partisans arrive at the farmhouse and shoot all six German officers before Lev and Kolya can act.

The Nazis trick literate prisoners into identifying themselves and execute fifty-seven men by machine gun.

Kolya uses his charm to negotiate a chess match between Lev and Abendroth, wagering their freedom and a dozen eggs.

Lev wins the chess game, then stabs Abendroth and kills a second German officer who attacks Kolya.

Russian soldiers mistake Lev and Kolya for Germans and open fire; Kolya bleeds to death before reaching the hospital.

Vika appears at Lev's apartment door after the war, carrying a box of eggs and fulfilling her promise.

Lev Beniov, a seventeen-year-old in besieged Leningrad, is arrested for looting a dead German parachutist and thrown into a cell with a charming soldier named Kolya. The next morning a secret police colonel offers them an impossible deal: find a dozen eggs by Thursday or face execution. Their desperate search leads them through a cannibal's apartment, the ruins of Lev's bombed home, and fifty kilometers into German-held territory. After falling in with a group of Russian partisans, all three are captured and Lev must use his chess skills to challenge the notorious Nazi officer Abendroth for their freedom and the eggs. Lev wins the game and, in a stunning reversal of his own self-image, kills two German officers to save himself and his friends. The mission ends in triumph and tragedy as the eggs are delivered but Lev's closest friend is shot dead by his own side.

The core quest — from arrest to egg delivery.

Colonel Grechko tells Kolya plainly that he likes him but warns he will not live a long life.

Lev and Kolya search the Haymarket but find no eggs; vendors say none have been available for months.

Lev and Kolya spend the night at Sonya's apartment; Kolya sleeps with Sonya while Lev lies alone on the floor.

Lev and Kolya find a malnourished dying boy on a rooftop who has kept one surviving chicken alive inside his coat.

Lev and Kolya take the surviving chicken from the dying boy and reluctantly leave him behind.

Back at Sonya's apartment, the chicken is discovered to be a rooster and cannot lay eggs.

Kolya correctly guesses that Lev's father was the poet Abraham Beniov, taken by the NKVD in 1937.

The rooster is slaughtered for soup and the group shares the best meal any of them have had in months.

Lev and Kolya discover the bodies of a family sprawled on the railway line, their flesh hacked off for food.

Russian soldiers stop Lev and Kolya at Leningrad's defenses; Kolya produces the colonel's letter to pass through.

The farmhouse girls tell Lev and Kolya the story of Zoya, a girl who tried to escape and was tortured to death by Einsatz officers.

Lev, Kolya, and Vika disguise themselves among a column of German-held Russian prisoners to avoid detection.

A fellow prisoner denounces Markov as a partisan; the Germans pull him from the column and shoot him dead.

Lev delivers the precious box of eggs to the colonel alone and receives two Grade One ration cards in return.

The siege of Leningrad ends and Lev celebrates, now serving as a journalist for the army newspaper.

Behind every major turning point in Lev and Kolya's quest lie smaller moments that reveal the true human cost of the siege. The Haymarket offers no eggs, only black market desperation, while a dying boy on a rooftop clings to a chicken that turns out to be a useless rooster. The road to Mga is littered with horrors — hacked corpses on a railway line, soldiers frozen to the ground, and dogs wired as weapons. Even the partisans' brief rest at a safe house ends in violent attack and forced flight among enemy prisoners. These secondary encounters test Lev's endurance, deepen his understanding of both Kolya and the war, and force both men to confront what survival truly demands. When Lev finally delivers the eggs alone and the colonel rewards him with ration cards, the small, hard-won victory carries the full weight of everything they endured.

The encounters and discoveries that shape the mission.

Lev turns back to help Vera over the gate instead of escaping, and is captured by soldiers.

Sitting alone in his dark prison cell, Lev discovers he still has the German knife strapped to his leg.

The morning after their arrest, Lev and Kolya are driven to NKVD headquarters rather than taken out to be executed.

The colonel returns the German knife to Lev after the interrogation, telling him he will need it.

Lev and Kolya find a wounded dog with a mine box strapped to its back; Kolya uses Lev's knife to end its suffering.

Kolya insists on lying in wait at the farmhouse to ambush the arriving German officers, overruling Lev's urge to flee.

Vika is introduced as the partisans' expert shooter, and Lev is immediately and deeply captivated by the red-haired girl.

Lev and Kolya agree to join the partisans on their hunt for Abendroth, the Einsatz officer who killed Zoya.

During the night march, Lev correctly deduces that Kolya himself is the true author of 'The Courtyard Hound.'

Kolya confesses to Lev that he was arrested after abandoning his unit to search the city for a woman.

Germans attack the partisans' safe house near Lake Ladoga; Korsakov is killed and the survivors are forced to flee.

Vika whispers to Lev and Kolya that they must pretend to be illiterate or risk being marched out and shot.

Vika falls asleep leaning on Lev's shoulder during the cramped overnight stay in the crowded tool shed.

Vika kisses Lev goodbye in the woods and promises she will track him down after the war.

Vika's arrival with eggs and her refusal to cook reveals she is the narrator's grandmother, described in the prologue.

City of Thieves is driven as much by personal revelations as by external action, and this pool captures the moments where characters are forced to show who they truly are. From Lev's split-second decision to help Vera — which leads directly to his own arrest — to his discovery that Kolya secretly authored an unfinished novel, the story is built on choices and confessions made under extreme pressure. The arrival of Vika reshapes both the mission and Lev himself, as her courage and eventual kiss give him something worth fighting for. Kolya's admission of the real reason for his desertion reframes their entire friendship, while Vika's whispered warning in the schoolhouse saves all three lives. By the final scene, when Vika appears at the door carrying eggs, her identity as the narrator's grandmother snaps the entire prologue into focus, revealing that the week Lev always remembered was also the week he met the love of his life.