Raised by a Polish aristocrat, Ivan is a young Ukrainian man of humble peasant origins. His cheeky nature pushes him to rob the Moscow Tsar of precious jewels, yet it's to a noble end: he needs the royal riches to free his mother from Ottoman enslavement. But then it turns out that the simple robbery is not that simple: Ivan accidentally steals a magical heirloom, an earring which had helped the Moscow ruler to stave off defeat.