A special report 31.07.2001 (2001)

The name of the program is "TO THE LANDING FOR BLUE BERETS" Entrance exams begin in July at the Ryazan Higher Military School of the Airborne Forces.

Who are the young people choosing a career as a professional military man today?

What drives them?

How do they imagine their future?

Additional intrigue is created by a peculiar tradition that has long existed at the school: every year, applicants who did not pass the competition, but have firmly decided to link their fate with the airborne troops, dig dugouts in the forest and besiege the school in a kind of "siege".

Some time later, the most persistent and determined "partisans" (as they are called in Ryazan) are allowed to retake the exams..." Video: Lines of paratroopers with flags walk across a field.

Lines of paratroopers perform combat exercises on a training ground.

A paratrooper smashes a brick over his head.

A paratrooper smashes a stack of bricks with his hand.

A paratrooper hits a fighter with a board, the board breaks.

Paratroopers with machine guns engage in hand-to-hand combat.

A paratrooper smashes bottles over his head.

A paratrooper jumps from a tower with a parachute.

A lecturer at the Ryazan Airborne Forces Museum tells visitors about the first parachute landing.

Photos of paratroopers in the Ryazan Airborne Forces Museum.

Young people walk through the halls of the museum.

A ferry with cars floats along the river.

Kirisenko Andrey on the ferry talks about the training center of the Ryazan Airborne Forces Institute and the cadets.

Young men with bags walk along the road.

A young man walking along the road talks about his decision to become a paratrooper.

An AN-2 plane in the air, landing a parachute assault.

An officer in front of a line of cadets talks about parachute jumps.

Parachutists in the sky.

Young men look at the sky.

A parachutist in the sky.

A parachutist lands on the water.

A platoon of cadets walks along a road in the forest.

Cadets run along the training ground to form up.

Cadets clean the territory of a tent camp.

The commander sets the task for applicants standing in formation to pick berries in the forest.

Cadets pick berries in the forest.

An applicant talks about picking berries.

An applicant talks about military service.

Applicants pour the picked berries into a can.

Applicants start a three-kilometer race.

Applicants with numbers on their chests run along the road.

Judges record the finish of the runners.

A tired applicant lies on the ground.

A man says he is worried about his son, an applicant who has decided to become a paratrooper.

Applicants are sitting at their desks in a classroom.

A doctor is measuring an applicant's height.

Applicants are running a hundred-meter dash.

Applicants are jumping into a pool.

Applicants are doing pull-ups on horizontal bars.

The chairman of the admissions committee, Colonel Evgenii Demin, is doing pull-ups on a horizontal bar and doing a somersault.

Evgenii Demin, Acting Head of the Airborne Forces Institute, is speaking about the results of the selection process for the Airborne Forces Institute.

Evgenii Demin is speaking about doing a somersault on a horizontal bar.

Evgenii Demin is doing a somersault on a horizontal bar.

An officer in front of the line tells the young men that they have been expelled.

Luggage bags are lying in a clearing.

A column of expelled young men is leaving the gates of the training center.

A young man walking in the column says that he has been expelled due to his short stature.

The expelled young men are digging a dugout in the forest, they are called "partisans".

A young man is sawing a log with a saw.

Young men are throwing out soil with shovels at the bottom of the dugout.

Young men are stacking logs and branches.

The young man says that anyone who wants to study at the Airborne Forces Institute must complete a young soldier course and perhaps be enrolled.

Young men are reinforcing the walls of the dugout with logs.

Young men are washing clothes in the river and wringing them out.

Young men are sitting by the fire and having lunch.

Brusnitsov Sergey says that he came to enroll in the Airborne Forces Institute for the second time, this time he got a bad mark in Russian.

Brusnitsov Sergey shows the living conditions in the dugout, the daily schedule, a place for garbage, a toilet, a washbasin, and a horizontal bar.

A young man is doing pull-ups on a horizontal bar in the forest.

Young men are running through the forest.

A young man is pouring water into a tin can for leaf tea.

A young man is taking out pieces of bread from the canteen.

A young man is showing a lizard on his palm.

Children with fishing rods are walking along the road.

A young man is standing in a boat and fishing.

A young cook cuts a lizard carcass.

The young man shows a pot and talks about lizard soup.

The mother of one of the young men came to the dugout to see her son.

The mother hugs her son and talks to him.

A cadet in a cadet uniform enters the hall where a meeting of the credentials committee is taking place.

The cadet reports to the commission members sitting at the table. "Partisans" enter the hall of the credentials committee meeting in formation and report.

The chairman tells the "partisans" that he cannot help them and advises them to go home.

Three hundred people who entered the Airborne Forces Institute are standing on the parade ground.

The camera moves along the line of future paratroopers.

Demin Evgenii - Acting Head of the Airborne Forces Institute in front of the line makes a speech to the future cadets who will show their best qualities during their studies.

A priest gives a parting word to the future cadets in front of the line.

A priest sprinkles the line of future cadets with holy water.

Caption: A month has passed.

An officer approaches a dugout and demands that the "partisans" come out and line up.

Four young men come out of the dugout.

The young men say that they have been living in the dugout for two months, want to become paratroopers, and are engaged in physical training and study.

The officer says that the institute's management has decided to conditionally enroll the "partisans" as first-year cadets of the Airborne Forces Institute.

The young men shout "Glory to the Airborne Forces".

The chimes of the Airborne Forces Institute sing a song.

An AN-2 plane is in the air, landing a parachute assault force.

The officer shakes hands with the four "partisans" enrolled in the Airborne Forces Institute.

A hairdresser cuts a cadet's hair with clippers.

A platoon of cadets runs along a road in the forest.

The cadets put on parachutes and walk along the airfield.

The cadet parachutists enter the AN-2 plane, the plane's door closes.

An AN-2 aircraft in the air, landing paratroopers.