Pavel Sergatskov

In January 1989, the Soviet army conducted its last military operation in Afghanistan and began the final withdrawal of troops from this country. Officially, the troops of the USSR completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan in mid-February. Over the ten years of the war, more than 15 thousand Soviet troops died in it. The film of the journalist Katerina Gordeeva “Afghanistan. Man (not) returned from the war ”- the story of those who managed to survive, but could not stop fighting - now in their own country.

This is a project that talks about the key figures in the leadership of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1953. Felix Dzerzhinsky, Kliment Voroshilov, Semyon Budyonny, Vyacheslav Molotov, Andrey Zhdanov, Victor Abakumov, Lavrenty Beria. Their names are known throughout the country today, but few people remember how they went down in history and what they did for their state. They were in the midst of civil confrontation and social upheaval, changing the course of history. Cities, streets and mountain peaks were named in their honor, monuments were erected to them, their victories were told in schools, but they could not know that after years their biographies would undergo careful editing, and all achievements would be forgotten.

The Old Man, the Bald Man, Lenin and 148 other nicknames are pseudonyms of the hereditary nobleman Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. He is a retarded infant, a thin, red–haired teenager, a young student, a provincial social Democrat, a young lawyer who traded his career for exile to Siberia. He is Lenin, the preacher of the armed struggle against autocracy, the man who organized the supply of weapons and ammunition to Russia, whose slogan is "Fight together, go separately" – it does not matter with whom: with dark people or with the general staffs of the Japanese and German armies. An incredibly able-bodied, passionate orthodox Marxist who paved the way to power with his pragmatism.

They caused so much pain. Their perverted fantasies caused irreparable damage and distorted hundreds of destinies. They tortured, raped, poisoned, killed and cut out hearts. Their victims survived in dugouts, bunkers and simply inhumane conditions. Real stories of serial killers, told by victims of their hands and relatives of the maniacs themselves.