Pavel Palley

The adventurous love story of Turgenev's illegitimate daughter Asya, who ran away from the estate to St. Petersburg with her lover, is intertwined with actual facts from the writer's life. The film has nothing to do with the novel of the same name.

The film was shot in 1942 by cinematographers of the Leningrad Newsreel Studio. It brings together unique footage captured during the siege in the ports of Osinovets and Kobona, during the evacuation of children along the Road of Life, and during the legendary battle on Sukho Island. The film provides a vivid picture of how events on the Road of Life actually unfolded.

Produced by the Soviet Union to justify its 1939-40 Winter War campaign in Finland, this outstanding documentary---more than any other such cinematic record---visually depicts the much vaunted Mannerheim Line in all its actual emplacements, as seen but two weeks after their capture, and as filmed by Red Army combat photographers onsite, directed by Vasili Belayev.