One-time Mosfilm actor Samsonov had a versatile directorial career prior to The Burning Miles, fresh from an adaptation of Chekhov's The Grasshopper that won two prizes at the Venice Film Festival.

Set during the Russian Civil War in 1919, as the forces of Yudenich near Petrograd and the White Guard Army, led by General Anton Denikin, lay siege to a southern city to suppress a rebellion.

He attracts an unusual group of equally desperate fellow travelers, including an elderly doctor, a young nurse, an actor from the Imperial Theaters of the Russian Empire, and a mysterious soldier who claims to be a veterinarian.

The actor is killed, and the doctor is gravely injured, but Zavragin reaches the city just in time to suppress the mutiny during a secret meeting disguised as a card game.

The Burning Miles is influenced by railroad Western films like John Ford's classic Stagecoach, because of the diverse set of characters thrown together in desperate circumstances.