Based on true events
Artem, you tell mom that I’ll come to see her…
in about two weeks.
It’s… I’m just tied up now.
OK.
I am to go to Leningrad anyway.
Will have to attend to some things before lectures begin.
You look drowsy, huh?
Some troubles in the university?
No. Nothing’s happening there.
The usual squabble.
Ah, whatever... So, how are things at home?
All in good health? Ah, thank God, thank God…
I see you believe in God now?
Oh look, there is your niece with her fiancé.
Hey listen, how’s your Slavka doing?
Haven’t seen him for long time.
Last time I came to see you, he just left for some tourist camp.
Actually, it is Slavka who troubles me now.
You know, Misha, kids are different now, I just don’t understand him.
We did it all ourselves, by the sweat of our brows, while he is just having it handed on a plate.
Everything is for him.
Yet he doesn’t respect us.
Despises even.
I forced him in the university, to save from ending up in Afghan.
And is he studying? This is how he’s studying!
Parties all day long.
Do you know this word? Some underground concerts.
This damned rock… Every day I expect…
a call from militia.
Here, look.
The recent photo of him.
Look at him…
All my life I’ve been doing what’s right…
and it turns out nobody needs it now.
And nobody needs me. Though, I’m not that old.
I feel something’s gone forever… and what is coming I don’t understand.
After Andropov died…
everyone started to fidget.
In our department, In the department of scientific communism.
In the department of history. Students too, obviously.
Hello, uncle Artem. Oh, hi Lisa.
Hello. Haven’t seen you for ages.
The whole two months passed.
Yes. Will you stay for long?
Oh no, I’ll go soon. Want to visit your grandma.
How is my brother Slavik?
Partying around.
Cool!
This is Valery, my friend.
Valery Buadze.
Half Georgian, but have never been to Georgia.
Kazakov Artem Nikolaevich, from Leningrad.
Okay then, we’ll have some tea in the kitchen…
You know, I have to get up early, and I still need to pack.
Is he really a fiancé? Oh come on, I was kidding.
But I think she likes him.
You know, he is a nice chap.
Not some dummy, I think.
Every year he enlists to work somewhere in the North…
and returns with good money.
Look, I am a colonel, right?
The conscription officer. And he earns three times as much as I do.
Just a punk, yet owns a car.
And not the kind you have.
So it’s not that simple, Artem.
He is not a student then? Nope.
And why is he not in the army? Well, he is not local, actually.
He is staying at some old woman’s house.
Says, that’s his grandmother…
So, I’m helping him here and there.
You know what’s happening in Afghan now, don’t you?
During this time to our shithole alone…
26 caskets arrived. Artem, 26!
Cargo 200 they call them.
And look what’s going on throughout the country!
You be careful, Mikhail…
Who is he, this uncle of yours?
Head of Scientific Atheism Department in the Leningrad University.
He helped me to get in last year.
So, will we go to disco then?
I told you I wanted to have a good sleep. I need to pack too…
You said yourself, the earlier we leave, the sooner we are there.
Look, we’ll just come round.
Valera, no! Well, whatever.
You’d better have a good sleep too, you are to drive.
It is a long way, and you say the road is bad.
Don’t you worry for me. I’ve seen worse roads.
Thank you for helping Lisa.
Oh, come on, Lisa is a smart girl, she could enter all by herself.
Where is it she is going to bright and early?
To Yara, her friend, a classmate, has a dacha there.
So, they thought they’d go to swim, to mushroom.
It’s all right, they are nice kids. They go just for a couple of days.
I can pick her up on my way back to Leningrad.
Come on, she is not some mollycoddle. She can take a bus.
All right then, I’ll call you when I’m coming back from mom’s.
Thanks for the food, it is such a problem here now.
Is there any left for mom? Yeah, I’ve got two bags full.
I’ll be off then.
Damn.
Dammit!
Hi.
Where is Lisa? Lisa? She is a…
She thought she’d go to bed early. We leave tomorrow early morning.
Hey, don’t you recognize me?
It’s me, Angelika, Lisa’s friend.
It’s my dacha we are going to tomorrow. Of course I recognized you.
Wanna dance? Sure, just wait a sec.
I’ll be back. OK.
Stay here.
Hi.
Good evening. Excuse me, are you the boss here?
Excuse me for barging in.
I was just going to Leninsk, and my engine died.
I tried to hitch, but no one stopped.
And I saw your house. And thought… Maybe here is someone who knows about engines?
Thank you.
Hello. Are you the boss here?
Good rifle. Simpson.
I am a hunter myself, I have granddad’s Simpson.
Vodka? What?
You see, I am going to Leninsk…
and my engine died on me.
No one stopped, so I thought… maybe you could help me?
I saw your lights from the road.
Tonya! Sit down.
Thank you.
Tonya!
Hello.
Where is Sunka? He was in the bathhouse.
Call him. And get us something to eat.
How long do I have to wait!
Where are you from? From Leningrad.
I am going to my mother, to Leninsk.
What’s your name? Kazakov Artem Nikolaevich.
We don’t use patronymics here. I am Alexey.
You wait, maybe we’ll think up something.
Are you an engineer?
No, I am professor of scientific atheism in the university.
Sunka!
Eh? Come, the master is calling.
Coming.
What comes first, the matter or the conscience?
Marxist-Lenin philosophy denies the idea of God,
as the idea based on the impossibility of cognizing the world that surrounds a human…
No, you scientist just tell me, does God exist or does he not?
This is exactly what I am trying to explain you.
You called me, master? Go bring us some from the bathhouse…
or we won’t be able to sort it out with the professor here.
All right, master.
OK then, come on, professor. Master asked this… from bath…
A buyer? No, this… professor…
You hear, Ton’? The scientist professor says here God does not exist.
So, no God then? No.
What is it? Mushroom soup.
Well then, what does exist?
There is a dynamic matter that is given to us in the form of sensations.
And soul? Is there a soul?
No, Alexey, there is no soul either.
So, what about my car?
Here.
So, Artem, no God then? No soul.
There is conscience and matter.
Then where this all comes from?
Conscience, for instance? Alexey, this is just an idle talk.
There is the Darwinian theory, which is taught at school.
You want me to believe that a monkey grabbed a stick and then evolved to…
abstract thinking?
Let’s drink. No, I can’t, thank you.
I need to go to Leninsk. How?
OK, I’ll go. Wait.
You came, so don’t offend the hosts now.
We opened our soul to you, though you don’t have one.
Good, this is our way, professor.
You eat your soup, eat. Tonka makes good soups.
Have cucumbers too, homemade.
Sun’, when you’re finished, get the car keys from the professor.
Check what’s wrong there.
So, Artem, nothing’s there?
You see, Alexey, I am an agnostic.
I believe in the cognizability of world, and I don’t believe in the supernatural.
So, will you repair it?
It’s… Plug needs cleaning…
and carburetor.
Give me a cloth.
Cloth.
Will it take long? Half an hour takes...
Are you Chinese? No, I am Vietnamese.
And why do they call you Sunka?
I Suan-Van-Hey.
It’s in Russian become…
Sunka.
I was working in big plant.
It’s in Leninsk.
Then they took me here.
To pour vodka, and work in garden.
I like here. I love garden.
I’ll go to the house. It’s cold here.
Here.
So, you are a communist. Yes, I am a member of Communist Party.
There is nothing to be proud of!
All the evil comes from you, the communists.
You want to replace God with your party and your Lenin.
- Well... - This is what you get!
There’s no God – so everything goes, you remember?
You can kill millions.
And I, when I was a kid…
I killed a guy accidentally, in a fight.
And I turned myself in, because I knew I was guilty.
Because they could blame the others.
10 years in high security was my sentence.
And I could say nothing.
But my conscience didn’t let me.
God didn’t let me get away with it.
And you want to abolish God.
And invented a science for that.
Do you know, Alexey, that moral standards are…
governed by material and economic relations.
Such manifestations, as morality or sense of duty, conscience…
existed even in primitive society, long before Christianity.
Semi-instinctive feeling caused by the obligation to keep the taboo.
And by the way, the Ten Commandments that appear in the Old Testament…
originated and were kept long before they were written down.
That’s right!
God gave us the commandments.
They always were there, they just were written down later on.
And don’t you try to scare me with your intelligent words.
Taboo!
We read books too.
Now this is the tune, not some crap they have in the club.
That’s it.
Done.
Valera, it’s late now. I know a place…
not far from here where we can get nice booze.
Way better than in a shop.
Valera, you’ve had enough. We have to rise early.
It’s very close.
I’ve got a cool car, we’ll be there in no time.
I’ll bring you then right to your door. Nice and fast.
The City of the Sun is the most shining example of utopia.
Campanella is by no means was the first one to take this path.
This is a dream generated by the class-consciousness, by the way.
So your consciousness is not the class one, huh?
Look at the sausage you gorge yourself on.
I’ve even never seen one like this.
You talk crap. You corrupt kids’ souls to gorge yourself on this sausage.
You must have reached communism now according to your party plans.
You don’t need the City of the Sun, but I do!
And I will build it.
But not throughout this fucking Union of yours,
but here, on this land. Everything will be different here.
Tonka here will make me kids.
People will come, and no longer will we depend on you, you vultures…
Ready, master.
Engine… It’s working.
but not go to Leninsk.
May not get there.
I won’t get there now anyway. Carburetor need cleaning.
Repair needed. Thank you, Suan-Van-Hey.
Thank you!
You said it was close. This is it, we are here.
You stay here, I’ll be back.
Hello, boss! Got booze?
Nice life you got here! Business is growing, huh?
Tell Sunka to bring a good bottle.
I just need some more.
Tonya!
Tell Sunka to bring a bottle.
A buyer.
So, how is this city of the sun of yours? Prospering, huh?
You, townie scumbag!
Don’t you sully my sacred idea!
Come on, man, come on, Alexey… I’m just kidding.
Oh, mommy!
Dough is everything, dudes.
If you have dough, you have…
You’ve had enough.
Aunty Tonya, bring us some cukes. Nice cukes you have.
And you, Sunka, bring another one, but pure this time.
Aren’t we tough pals, huh?
I pay double.
I’ve been living with Nenets, at the White Sea.
Fishing for salmon. They all drink pure spirit there.
Kids do too. Do you know how they drink spirit there?
Vika! Join us. Vale…
Sunka, give her a glass. Valera, let’s go.
Yeah, soon, let me just finish.
Look, how they drink spirit.
In there… if you don’t have spirit… you're dead.
You’ll freeze to death.
Where will he drive now?
Come here.
And Nenets wear kukhlyankas and trubastas…
and hide spirit in trubastas.
I have kukhlyanka too.
Pull him off.
It’s…
Can’t pull alone.
Very big.
My dad is the head of district party committee.
Close the hatch.
- Hot. - Did you come with this one?
How? He’s got a car.
Do you drive?
Stop weeping, I don’t like it.
Tonya!
Hide behind the stove, move. Be silent!
Where’s she? Gone.
Don’t lie to me, Tonya.
You won’t get her anyway.
You won’t let me?
This how your city of the sun will look like?
There are no wives in the city of the sun, all are equal.
And kids are common…
Have you seen here anyone? Whom?
Sloshed again! No, haven’t seen.
Let’s go.
Get out.
Now go outside, there is a bathhouse to the left.
Thirty meters from the bathhouse is a shed.
Run to the shed, the door’s open.
There’s a cow. Don’t be afraid of her, she is docile.
Close the door and hide in the far corner.
There’s hay. Bury yourself in the hay, and be silent… Tonya!
I’ll come to you, when everyone’s asleep.
I have to go home! Stop weeping.
She has to! You think first with whom and when.
Go! Tonya!
It’s… master… it’s… spirit’s running low.
Need… bring some more.
Did you lock the bathhouse?
I’ll sleep in the shed.
First bring the firewood!
Give me the bath key, I’ll put the shotgun there.
Put the master to bed. He’s wasted.
Heavy...
Hey you! Where are you?
Who’s here? Antonina. Move. Quickly.
Follow me.
It’s warmer here.
Don’t break anything here, I’ll let you out in the morning.
Aunty, aunty!
Please, aunty!
I have to go home.
Sunka!
Open the bath. Eh? In a sec.
My dad is the head of district party committee.
- Please, no! Chief, it’s… don’t touch girl.
Must not… chief.
Take it off.
Please, I am a virgin.
On your fours.
My fiancé is a paratrooper, in Afghanistan. He’s very tough.
Do you know ‘Cascade’?
Lift it up.
Artem?
Let me sleep on your sofa, my car broke down.
Sure, come in.
Hey, you’re dead drunk.
Go to the balcony.
Sleep there on the sofa.
My wife is working night shift.
Take the blanket.
How did you drive here that drunk?
Please?
I left my shoes there.
Militia?
Farmyard on the left from Kalyaevo.
There’s a body in the bathhouse.
Please! I am bleeding.
Hi!
Hello, uncle Artem.
Something’s wrong?
Her boyfriend didn’t show up.
Why aren’t you in the office?
Sunday.
Go, have a breakfast. Katya served there something.
I came back from the night shift,
and the kids who were there by six, already left.
Lisa is crying. Her boyfriend, you know…
It’s just so embarrassing.
And then Algelika, her friend, is missing.
Her father called at night. The head of district party committee.
He says: the girl went to the disco and didn’t come back home.
So? No, nothing.
They say there’s been a murder in Kalyaevo.
OK then, I’ll be going.
What’s the problem with your car? Ah… plugs.
I’ll get them on my way. I know a place.
Mom! Mom!
Sit down.
My dad is the head of district party committee.
He will come after you, and they will execute you.
And there’ll be the demob in September.
My fiancé, senior sergeant…
Gorbunov will come back from Afghanistan…
and he will avenge me.
He loves me and will do everything for me.
Please, I need to go to the bathroom.
Mom, every time I leave…
you do it again. Ah, my Zhurik is back!
Drink. What’s that?
I won’t. Drink.
Sleep.
Please…
Tema, you’d better eat something.
You ate nothing for days.
Mom, thanks, later.
Hello, speak. Katya! It’s Artem.
Hello, Artem. Is Misha there?
He is still in the office. What’s taking him so long?
There’re some problems again. Cargo 200 is arriving.
Mom!
Artem, I have to go now. Call Misha.
When is this cargo arriving?
They will keep us informed, comrade colonel.
It is only known that IL-76 is to land on the Leninsk airfield.
Senior sergeant Gorbunov is our guy, from Volok.
Senior sergeant Gorbunov…
And do you know, mayor Duev…
that senior sergeant Gorbunov is Kolya Gorbunov?
My Lisa’s classmate.
I've known him since he was a kid.
Kolya was killed.
Angelika, the daughter of this asshole Naboev, Kolya’s fiancée
is missing.
My daughter’s boyfriend is missing.
What the hell is going on, tell me?
Mikhail Nikolaevich, there is your brother on the line, from Leninsk.
Put him through.
Hello, Mikhail. Yeah, Artem, hi.
How’s mother? All right. So, will you come?
No, I can’t. Too many problems to deal with.
So, did Lisa’s boyfriend show up?
No, her friend’s missing too.
Hey listen, what was there in Kalyaevo?
I was on my way to mom, and the place was packed with militia.
Ah, there’s this local tenant… He killed a Vietnamese, his worker.
He is in Leninsk now, in the prosecutor’s office.
Mikhail Nikolaevich, there’s Leninsk conscription office on the second line.
OK, Artem. I have to go. There is a call from the district. I’ll talk to you tonight.
Yes, colonel, hi.
Listen, will you take the cargo 200 the day after tomorrow?
The day after tomorrow? You know, to bury an Afghan hero.
So, what do you want me to do? Well, you help, contact his relatives.
He’s got no relatives, none.
His father is an alky locked in the nut house. No one’s here to bury him.
How many men do you have there? Everyone’s on summer leave now.
And I have two men. A car, transportation…
Hey, I don’t give a damn about your summer leaves.
He died for his motherland, do you get it!
Use your militia clowns, you’ve got aplenty of them there!
Fuck! Fucking fuck, when will it end!
Tell the sergeant…
to make a tea.
Eye, comrade colonel.
Comrade Naboev, we’re searching. We use all the manpower.
And don’t give a damn!
I told you to find her!
This is my daughter, you get it?
The last time she was seen was at the disco with the guy wearing a CCCP T-shirt.
He’s not local and no one knows who he is.
His name is Valera, but we’re not sure of that.
You’ve got last 24 hours.
If you fail, you’ll be a janitor.
Eye.
He hit me! Do you hear? No?
What floor? Eh? I don’t know.
Quick Response Group set off!
Apartment 87, fourth floor.
Move.
What do ya want!? Smash.
Take this one.
Fuckers! Was it you who called?
They are there.
Get up. Suckers!
Asshole. Up everyone!
This is my flat.
This is my day off and I’m having good time with my buddies.
With the dough I earned. I have the right!
Up everyone I said!
What the fuck are you doing here anyway?
Who let these pigs in?
Fuck off you all!
Move out!
Register the resistance to authority.
Take him to the car.
What are you doing fuckers?
One word from you, and we’ll beat him to death.
Resting, huh?
My Zhurik is back from work.
He works a lot, my boy.
He’s got a very difficult job.
He will have dinner and come to you then.
Wanna have a drink?
I have a stash.
So you don’t want.
Well, rest then.
Your wife is kinda…
She doesn’t love me, mother.
She had a boyfriend before me, a paratrooper.
Right, every woman needs a man, and you…
And I love her.
Hello.
Kolya will come soon and kill you.
Please…
Let me go, please.
I’ll tell no one.
What do ya want? And what do ya want?
Want you to suck my cock.
OK.
You…
Easy with the balls.
Get him when he is recovered. We’ll register him as a runner.
Is this Dzerzhinsk station? Yes.
This is colonel Sukhina. Deputy region conscription officer.
Can I talk to the station chief?
Capitan Zhurov here. Listen, captain
you have a new cemetery in your district.
We need to bury an Afghan hero.
The conscription office will pay all the expenses.
Help us out, man, huh?
Listen, captain,
Senior sergeant Gorbunov. He is from the region, from Nizhny Volok.
Listen, he’s got no relatives. He is a real paratrooper, a hero.
Listen captain, we’ll settle up then…
You see, I’ve got no men now. No one.
And we’ve got six more 200s on this flight.
What’s the name again? Colonel Sukhina.
Not yours. Cargo’s. Ah, this.
Gorbunov, senior sergeant.
When’s the cargo? The day after tomorrow.
26th of August, to our airfield. Around noon.
Listen, we’ll pay your transport, captain.
All right, colonel. Call me tomorrow when you know the time.
You, girl, treat your husband right.
He is your first one, after all.
Get off! Do you want a pie?
Cabbage pie.
All right then.
Hi. Hi.
Because of the tart?
She is my wife.
You owe me. I remember.
Don’t touch Antonina.
Did Sunka die?
Look.
Leave it here for now.
Three four eight, do you have all the papers with you?
Decorations. Load it on.
But Alexey didn’t kill him. He didn’t.
Then why don’t you say them that there was this other man?
Alexey doesn’t want me to. But why? I don’t understand.
It’s Alexey’s business with him,
since prison.
He didn’t tell me.
There was the other guy, wearing the red CCCP T-shirt…
and a girl with him.
Where? In Kalyaevo.
When you left.
And where are they? I don’t know, they left too.
You have to find them, they'll testify.
Will you?
You see, Antonina…
I am the head of department of scientific communism in Leningrad university.
I am the party member. If they find out about all this…
I’ll be in trouble, you see.
They’ll admonish me, or even fire.
I’m a family man and…
the lectures will begin soon. I just can’t.
But if you need anything I…
Alexey said:
the earlier the Lord takes us,
the less time we have to sin.
You blacky, hey, hey…
OK, go now. Get the cemetery lot ready.
Here’s your fiancé.
Dammit!
Mom, she didn’t like him.
And I hoped so much.
She loves her paratrooper.
To convict of…
offence under paragraph E clause 102…
of the Criminal Code of RSFSR, namely murder
in the first degree of the citizen of Republic of Vietnam
Suan-Van-Hey with the intention of concealing the other offence…
and in accordance with the clause 23 of the Criminal Code of RSFSR to sentence him to the
exceptional measure of punishment, death penalty,
and seizure of all property.
Belov Alexey Nikolaevich
is to be retained in custody
Expenses to the amount of 220 roubles related to remuneration of experts…
are to be collected from the convict in favour of the state.
Who’s there? Captain Zhurov.
Of fourteenth militia station of Dzerzhinsk region, town of Leninsk.
I need to see comrade Naboev, I called you yesterday.
Come in comrade Zhurov. We’ve found the letters
from Kolya Gorbunov to Lika, but there’s no word of Valera.
As I told you comrade Naboev we had the information that
Gorbunov and a certain Valera who was with her in the disco, were friends.
According to our records, it was Valera who took your daughter away.
That is why we wanted to see the letters for ourselves. We’ll bring them back to you.
Sure. Sure, comrade captain.
Anya, bring the letters. Yes, yes.
Will you find her? By all means.
Would you like to come in? My wife will make you some tea.
Thank you, it’s getting late. And I need to return to Leninsk.
Tomorrow’s Monday. Here you are.
Will you go to the department tomorrow? No.
I’ll go to Orenburg tomorrow to get a sick leave.
What’s wrong Artem?
You are not yourself after Leninsk.
Lena, everything’s fine.
What happened there, in Leninsk?
You already asked me this.
Are you having an affair?
Folks! I’m gone.
Slava, please don’t be too late. You have lessons in the morning.
And who is the visitor?
How should we know? We’ve just been ordered to bring you.
Everything’s going to change soon. Yeah.
Dear Lika.
This is my fourth letter to you after the boot camp.
And I still didn’t get anything from you.
In fact, we move all the time, and the mail is trying to chase us.
The day after tomorrow we'll be transferred to the Kandahar area.
I miss you so much, but it’s another year before I see you.
We had a mop-up operation yesterday and the dukhs killed two of our guys.
Grisha and I were saved by a miracle.
and our corporal was shot in the ass.
The guys were laughing, and I felt sorry for him. He is a good fellow.
He saved many guys.
I hope, you wait for me.
Send my best to everyone.
I sent you a letter from Kabul…
but the dukhs downed our aircraft.
And I thought, maybe my letter was there?
Please write me.
I miss your letters so much.
But most of all I miss you.
Kisses. Your Kolya.
Who do you want? Is captain Zhurov at home?
He’s there, with his wife.
We have flies.
Aunty! Let me go! Please!
Excuse me, can I see the Father?
Father Vasily will be here for evening service.
Excuse me, and when is the evening service? In an hour.
What do you want?
I would like to know what are your procedures for christening.
It’s not a procedure, it’s a ceremony.
Sit there, pray and wait.
Hey, what’s your name?
Slavik.
Do I know you? Nope.
My name’s Valera. I saw you somewhere.
Anything is possible. Cool T-shirt.
Listen, let’s booze up after the concert. I pay.
Sounds good.
This is just the time now to rake in good money.
Take me, I come to Nenets…
and get ten deer fells for a case of spirit.
And here I have a dude who pays me loads for them!
If we partner up, Slavik, we’ll make two, three times more!
I’m not a local, you see, so I need a partner who is the Leningrad resident.
I get it.
It was the second half of 1984.
Translator info@baidak.com