The Woman Who Built Cities

Forty years ago, a documentary film about Soviet cardiac surgeons was released. Perhaps, for the first time on our screen, doctors reflected on the value of human life, talked about their experiences caused by the death of a patient, about the imperfection of Soviet medicine, the lack of knowledge and responsibility of doctors. For forty years, medicine has made an incredible breakthrough, but the moral problems that plague doctors have remained the same. “You can’t get used to death” is the leitmotif of the paintings, old and new. The film was awarded as the Best Non-Fiction Film at the Russian Film Festival "Window to Europe" - 2016.

The psychological and physical burdens that cardiac surgeons must bear are borderline. There are two opinions. The first: if you are not fully dedicated to heart surgery without any other interest you can not be a true professional. The second opinion: if you do not have an outlet, something else in your life, you will quickly fall apart and you will not be able to work quite well. At the center of the film is Mikhail Alchibaia, MD, director of the Coronary Surgery Department of the Bakulev Cardiovascular Surgery Research Institute and one of the world's leading collectors of contemporary art.

More than a quarter century has passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. We still feel the contradictory echoes, the echo of this collapse, and, probably, we will feel for a long time. But there is little left that still unites us - former citizens of the former empire, wherever fate brings us - Soviet food, an absolutely unique sociocultural phenomenon of Soviet history and Soviet life.