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Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (Kavkazskaya plennitsa, ili Novye priklyucheniya Shurika)
A kind, yet naïve, ethnography student named Shurik (Alexander Demyanenko), known from earlier films as a student at a polytechnic institute, goes to the Caucasus to learn ancient customs and traditions practised by the locals, including "myths, legends, and toasts". At the start of the film, Shurik is making his way along a mountain road in the Caucasus on a donkey. He comes upon a truck driver named Edik whose truck refuses to start. The donkey gets stubborn and neither man is able to get his respective mode of transportation going.
Suddenly, a young woman named Nina (Natalya Varley) comes walking down the road. The donkey immediately begins to move after her and the truck starts working again. Nina is "a higher education student, an athlete, a member of the Komsomol, and last but not least — a beauty". Her uncle, Comrade Dzhabrail (Frunzik Mkrtchyan), works as a chauffeur for Comrade Saakhov (Vladimir Etush), who is the director of the regional agricultural cooperative and the wealthiest and most powerful man in town. Saakhov likes Nina and invites her to take part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new civil registry. Shurik shows up to the ribbon-cutting completely drunk because the locals refused to tell him local toasts unless he drank to each of them. He ends up becoming disorderly and the militsiya carts him off.
Meanwhile, Saakhov decides to marry Nina and strikes a deal with Dzhabrail to purchase the bride in return for 20 head of sheep and an imported Finnish Rosenlew refrigerator. Rather than asking for Nina's agreement (which her uncle realizes would be impossible to get), they decide to kidnap her instead. The trio of the Coward, the Fool, and the Pro, hired to do the job, find it difficult to get Nina alone because she has started to spend a lot of time with Shurik. At this point, Saakhov has the idea to unwittingly get Shurik in on it by telling him that the kidnapping of the bride is a local custom. Dzhabrail meets with Shurik in a restaurant and tells him this story, lying to him that Nina has already agreed to marry Saakhov and that she wants to be kidnapped in order to comply with tradition. Shurik is devastated, because he is in love with Nina, but thinking that this is what she wants, he agrees to help.
Nina has gone camping and spends a night in a sleeping bag. Shurik bids her an emotional good-bye; misunderstanding him, she shrugs and also says good-bye. Shurik then zips her up in her sleeping bag and signals to the Coward, the Fool, and the Pro, who run over to grab the helpless Nina and transport her to Saakhov's dacha. Soon after, Shurik learns that the kidnapping was real and that the story about it being a custom was a lie. Shurik immediately runs to the militsiya, but Saakhov (who Shurik does not realize is involved) is waiting for him outside. Saakhov explains to Shurik that if he says anything, the militsiya will arrest him as a co-conspirator and suggests they go straight to the local prosecutor instead. Shurik agrees, but Saakhov tricks him by leading him to a house where there is a party going on and getting him to drink, then calling doctors from the local psychiatric clinic and having Shurik committed.
Meanwhile, at Saakhov's dacha, the trio of kidnappers lock Nina in a room and try to cheer her up by bringing food and singing songs. Nina pretends to be interested, but then when the kidnappers are distracted, she tries to run away. She is stopped by her uncle and forced to return to her room, where she is locked up. Saakhov arrives with a bottle of wine and goes in to speak with Nina, but runs out moments later covered from head to toe in the wine. Deciding to give Nina some time to "think about it", Dzhabrail and Saakhov drive away from the dacha, leaving the trio of kidnappers in charge of Nina.
At the hospital, Shurik finally realizes that Saakhov is the one behind the kidnapping. Shurik escapes from the psychiatric ward and happens to run into Edik, the truck driver he had met at the beginning of the film. Together, they drive toward Saakhov's dacha. When they arrive, they have changed into doctors' uniforms and convince the Coward, the Fool, and the Pro that they are doing emergency vaccinations against a dangerous hoof-and-mouth disease that is affecting the area. Under this guise, they inject the trio with sedatives. While Edik is performing the injections, Shurik goes up to Nina's room. Still thinking that he was in on the kidnapping, she hits him over the head with a fruit plate, runs out of the room, jumps out of a first-floor window, and steals one of the trucks.
A car chase ensues in which the kidnappers chase Nina while Shurik and Edik chase the kidnappers. The kidnappers catch up with Nina, commandeer her vehicle, and tie her up, but at that moment the sedative begins to take effect and they all fall asleep. Shurik catches up with the truck right before it veers off the road and stops it. He begins to untie Nina, but she attacks him, still thinking that he is in league with the kidnappers. To reveal his feelings for her, Shurik kisses Nina before he finishes untying her.
The action moves to Saakhov's apartment at night. He is alone. Suddenly, Nina, Shurik, and Edik appear, holding rifles, dressed in masks, and calling themselves the enforcers of the "law of the mountains". Saakhov does not recognize them and, scared to death, jumps out of the window. Edik shoots him with his shotgun, which turns out to be loaded with nothing more than salt. He hits him in the rump and, when Saakhov is brought up on charges in court the next day, he is unable to sit. The film ends with Shurik walking Nina to a bus and then following after her on his donkey.