The Last Bottomhole

It all starts in 1985. In a small town there are three boys who dream of a career as a naval officer - Sashka Robertson, Leshka Balunov and Vovka Titov. The submarine K-963, on which their fathers serve, is leaving on a secret mission - to the NATO exercise area to find and record an acoustic portrait of the newest, virtually silent American submarine. And the boys, playing submariners in an abandoned factory, fall into a death trap. Years later, when friends Sashka, Leshka and Vovka were finishing school, military service no longer seemed so prestigious to many, values ​​changed, and submarines rusted. Vovka leaves for Moscow, becomes a businessman. Lyoshka goes to the Marine Corps. And only Sashka remains true to his youthful dream and connects his life with the sea - he becomes a submariner.

The social ferment in late 19th century Russia which led to the 1917 Russian Revolution is movingly portrayed in this lengthy historical drama, which is very faithful to the 1907 novel The Mother by the celebrated Marxist writer Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). In the story, "the mother" has no other recourse than to watch her decent, kindly husband turn into an animalistic, drunken brute as a result of working in the inhuman conditions of a steel mill in the town of Sormovo. When he begins to express his suppressed rage by beating her, she is defended by her teenaged son Pavel. After his father's death, Pavel is forced to go to work in the same factory. However, Pavel and his friends begin investigating Marxism and socialist thought, and work to organize their fellow workers.

Former criminal Sergei meets Vera - an elderly unhappy woman who lives in a dormitory. After Sergei commits another crime, they run together and along the way they accidentally get into a zone contaminated by radiation. Sergei decides to stay there, but Vera does not leave him. At that moment three looters come to the territory.

Roman Shilo, a known criminal, suddenly must deal with his fourteen years old daughter and not only with her but with her little stepbrother and stepsister as well.

To assassinate Joseph Stalin, the Commander‑in‑Chief of the Soviet Army – that is the task Hitler sets before the Army of the Third Reich. Preparations begin for an operation called “The Chinese Box”. Assassin agents are trained to carry out the mission at a special sabotage school. Here, Soviet prisoners of war are used as living material for training German intelligence agents. Only one of the candidates for a special role in history survives the training. That candidate turns out to be the runaway Russian soldier Pyotr Tavrin. Meanwhile, the Soviet counterintelligence service “Smersh” learns about Hitler’s plan. A special group is being formed from the best intelligence officers, who must ensure that the name “China Casket” does not go down in history. Behind each officer in the group is a human story and their own war experience.