The film's material includes historical documents, newsreel footage, and current events – rallies of informal associations.
Game footage from the feature film: Stalin I.V. delivers a speech.
Newsreel from the late 1980s: an orator delivers a speech at a rally of the Popular Front, people are holding a portrait of Gorbachev M.S. One of the speakers shouts slogans into a megaphone.
There is a police cordon.
Karyakin Yu.F. delivers a speech.
Police officers push reporters away from the rally venue.
Police try to detain rally participants, people are taken away by force.
Police push rally participants away.
A detainee shouts slogans from a moving bus.
Economist Lisichkin G.S. delivers a speech.
Participants in the Popular Front march carry a red flag.
One of the marchers answers the filmmakers’ questions on the move (synchronously).
Academician Sakharov A.D. delivers a speech.
Sculpture workshop.
The sculptor’s hands knead clay.
Newsreel from the 1920s: a mass race on one of Moscow's streets (the newsreel alternates with a view of a sculptor's hands).
Views of statues on one of Moscow's high-rise buildings.
A sculptor working on a bust of Marx K. The face of a working sculptor.
A bust of Marx.
A sculptor working on a bust of Lenin.
Karyakin Yuri Fedorovich --writer
public figure Gennady Stepanovich Lisichkin - economist Andrey Dmitrievich Sakharov - physicist scientist
political figure
1920s 1988-1989
Moscow
Summer
Philosopher M. Kapustin gives an interview (synchronously).
Kapustin demonstrates a historical diagram he has drawn on the board.
Newsreel from 1917: a rally in Petrograd in April-May 1917. Demonstration at the Tauride Palace.
Participants in the rally.
An orator speaks at one of the May Day rallies on the Field of Mars.
Views of the rally on the Field of Mars.
The running hand of the clock.
Newsreel from the 1920s-1930s: moving steam locomotives.
The earth flies apart from an explosion.
View of an abandoned railroad track (top).
Destroyed railroad track.
The clock hand moves backwards.
Kapustin gives an interview (synchronously).
Statues on one of the high-rise buildings in Moscow.
Steam locomotives on abandoned railroad tracks.
A steam locomotive on a destroyed railroad track.
Newsreel from 1937: a brass band marches down a Moscow street.
A demonstration in honor of the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. People cast ballots into a ballot box.
A Red Army soldier with a banner in his hands casts a ballot into a ballot box.
People vote at one of the polling stations.
Stalin I.V., Molotov V.M., Yezhov N.I. at a polling station.
Stalin receives a ballot.
A sheet of a ballot.
Stalin casts a ballot into a ballot box.
Stalin speaks at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (synchronously).
People in the hall listen to Stalin's speech.
Stalin speaks from the rostrum.
People applaud Stalin.
May Day demonstration on Red Square.
Athletes march past.
Representatives of the Union republics of Central Asia march past.
Performance by participants in the physical education parade on Red Square.
Girls dance national dances on Red Square.
Demonstrators in national costumes march by (intercut with views of typewriter keyboards and printed text).
Photograph of M. N. Ryutin and his death certificate. M. N. Ryutin's daughter Lyubov Martemyanovna gives an interview (synchronously).
Photographs of Ryutin. L. M. Ryutina gives an interview (synchronously).
Text of Nemov's denunciation of Ryutin to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Photograph of Ryutin among members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Text of Ryutin's letter to E. M. Yaroslavsky.
Photographs of Ryutin with children.
Portrait of Ryutin.
Part of the text of Ryutin's letter to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). L. M. Ryutina gives an interview (synchronously).
Newsreel from the 1920s: prisoners are led out of the building. L. M. Ryutina gives an interview (synchronously).
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich - statesman and political figure Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich - statesman and political figure Yezhov Nikolai Ivanovich - statesman and political figure
1917 1920s 1930s 12.1936
Moscow Petrograd
Spring Winter
Photograph of Ryutin M.N. and his death certificate.
Ryutin L.M. gives an interview (synchronously).
Ryutin's death certificate.
Footage from the feature film: Stalin inspects a sample of a new tractor in the Kremlin courtyard, workers argue with Bukharin.
Interior view of the archive storage facility.
Photograph of the bust of Yagoda G.G. Member of the Memorial Society Yurasov D. looks through the card index he has collected on repressed people.
Yurasov gives an interview (synchronously).
Interior view of the archive storage facility.
Yurasov gives an interview (synchronously).
The hands of Yurasov, sorting through the card index.
Interior view of the archive storage facility.
An archive employee removes the seal and opens the lock, goes into the storage facility.
Archive employees in the storage facility (texts of archival documents are heard synchronously).
Archival files on the shelves of the storage facility.
The face of an archive employee.
Statues on a high-rise building, covered with a safety net.
Newsreel from 1988: a rally in Moscow in support of Yeltsin B.N. One of the rally participants speaks, people chant "Yeltsin!" Yeltsin walks through the crowd of rally participants (his speech is played simultaneously).
Rally participants hold slogans in their hands.
Yeltsin is among the rally participants, people greet him.
Yeltsin speaks at a rally.
People applaud Yeltsin, faces of rally participants.
Yeltsin speaks at a rally.
Panorama of part of the rally.
People applaud Yeltsin.
Yeltsin Boris Nikolaevich - statesman and political figure
1988
Moscow
Autumn
Newsreel from 1988: Yeltsin B.N. speaking at a rally, panoramic view of part of the rally.
General view of the rally (from above).
People raise their hands in support of Yeltsin.
The clock hand moves backwards.
Kapustin gives an interview (synchronously).
Stalin I.V. signs a photograph and hands it to Nakhangova M. during the All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites in 1935. Stalin on the tribune of the mausoleum.
Stalin shakes hands with delegates of the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1934. A dog sniffs a bust of Stalin.
A red flag on the wall of a log house with boarded up windows.
View of a wooden house with a red flag on the wall.
Newsreel from the late 1920s: an experiment on conditioned and unconditioned reflexes on a dog.
A dog's paw with a wire attached to it.
An electric current is passed through the dog.
The metronome is working.
Electric current is passed through the dog.
The dog reacts to the working metronome.
The face of a screaming mother in labor.
A newborn baby.
A baby in a cradle.
The hands of a sculptor kneading clay.
Newsreel from the late 1920s: people digging the earth for a pit.
People laying rails.
Construction of a railroad.
Laying rails on sleepers.
A mixer kneads clay.
People hammer in spikes to attach the rails to the sleepers.
People pushing mine carts along the rails.
Women digging the earth.
People carrying earth on stretchers.
Loading earth into wheelbarrows.
A slogan at a construction site.
People pushing a mine cart with soil.
People pouring soil out of a mine cart.
The hands of a sculptor kneading clay.
Clay in a molding machine.
Newsreel from the late 1920s - early 1930s is shown simultaneously: the presentation of badges to graduates of an educational institution.
People applauding.
Transportation of raw clay blanks on a handcart (alternating with newsreel footage of people applauding).
View of an abandoned railway embankment (top).
View of an abandoned and destroyed railway track (top).
View of an abandoned correctional labor camp (top).
View of one of the destroyed production facilities of the camp.
Photographs of Tolstoyan members of the agricultural commune "Life and Labor" at work.
People standing on a bridge, winter rural landscape.
Photograph of students of a rural school.
Elderly people walking along a village street, the memories of one of them sound synchronously.
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich - statesman and political figure Yeltsin Boris Nikolaevich - statesman and political figure
1920s 1930s 1934 1935 1988
Moscow
Summer Autumn
Photograph of members of the Life and Labor commune.
Elderly people are standing on a village street, their memories sound synchronously.
View of a village house, people are walking down the street.
Former chairman of the commune B. Mazurin gives an interview (synchronously).
A sheet of paper is in Mazurin's hands, photographs are on the table.
Photographs of commune members.
Mazurin gives an interview (synchronously).
A portrait of L.N. Tolstoy and a portrait of Mazurin in his youth hang on the wall, Mazurin is sitting on the sofa and reading a letter.
Mazurin is throwing logs into the stove.
Photographs of Mazurin.
Surviving members of the commune are standing with photographs in their hands.
Mazurin among former members of the commune.
View of an abandoned cemetery on the shore of a forest lake.
Burial mounds in the forest.
Views of an abandoned cemetery.
The interior of an abandoned camp barracks, there are burning candles on the bunks.
Surviving name tags of prisoners on the bunks.
Sheets of lists of prisoners.
Views of an abandoned cemetery in the forest, a burning candle on a rotten cross, a bird's nest nearby.
Kapustin gives an interview (synchronously).
Kapustin gives an interview (synchronously).
Interior of an Orthodox church, priest Men A. comes out of the altar.
Faces of people praying.
Father Alexander Men reads memorial notes.
Faces of people praying.
Father Alexander Men blesses parishioners.
One of the bas-reliefs of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
General view of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Father Alexander Men gives a sermon in the church (synchronously).
Newsreel from 1931: removing icons from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Workers turn the handles of the lifting mechanism.
Dismantling fragments of bas-reliefs of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
The hand of the statue, wrapped in a rope.
Fragments of dismantled statues and bas-reliefs of the church.
Father Alexander Men gives a sermon (synchronously).
Newsreel from 1931: explosion of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Father Alexander Men gives a sermon (synchronously).
Newsreel from 1931: Views of the ruins of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Workers drag stone blocks from the walls of a destroyed temple.
Clearing rubble at the site of an explosion.
Removing construction waste.
Clearing the site for the construction of the Palace of Soviets.
Drawing of the Palace of Soviets.
Construction and earthmoving equipment at the construction site of the Palace of Soviets.
Excavators at work.
Views of the construction site.
Casting a bust of Lenin.
Finished cast busts of Lenin, a master molder at work.
Footage from the feature film "The Fall of Berlin": Stalin delivers a speech to Red Army soldiers and liberated concentration camp prisoners.
Newsreel from the 1930s: a girl speaks at a rally condemning the Trotskyists.
Demonstration under anti-Trotskyist slogans.
May Day demonstration on Red Square.
Night footage of a demonstration in support of the death sentence for the Trotskyists.
People carry portraits of Lenin and Stalin.
Men A. -- priest
1930s 1931
Moscow
Summer Autumn Winter
Rally of the April organization in Moscow.
Faces of women.
Writer Streljany A.I. speaks at the rally, panoramic view of part of the rally.
Correspondents film what is happening at the rally.
Faces of people.
Slogans in the hands of rally participants.
Faces of people.
View of part of the rally.
Face of a woman.
People applaud.
View of part of the rally.
Panorama of part of the rally.
Disabled people in wheelchairs at the rally.
Streljany continues speaking.
People applaud.
View of the bell tower in the middle of the Volga near Kalyazin.
Father Alexander Men gives an interview (synchronously).
View of the walls of the destroyed church.
Father Alexander Men gives an interview (synchronously).
Children sit on the rubble of the wall of the destroyed church, panoramic view of the wall.
Father Alexander Men gives an interview.
People swim in the Moscow swimming pool.
Faces of people swimming in the pool.
View of part of a Moscow block from the pool.
View of the Moscow pool at night.
A sculptor kneads clay in his hands.
Busts on shelves and statues in a sculpture studio.
A sculptor kneads clay while sitting at the foot of an unfinished statue.
Paintings installed against the backdrop of a building being demolished.
Newsreel from 1989: a demonstration in Vilnius on February 16. Demonstrators stand with burning candles in their hands.
General view of the demonstration (above).
View of a hospital corridor.
An orderly tends to a patient.
19.02.1989
Vilnius
Winter
Newsreel from 1989: people approach the memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide in 1915. People come to honor the memory of the victims of the genocide.
People carry slogans in Russian and Armenian and funeral wreaths.
A girl walks with tulips in her hands.
People lay flowers and wreaths at the foot of the memorial.
People stand by the eternal flame, interior view of part of the memorial.
Queue to the memorial.
People of different ages pass lumps of clay to each other during the festival.
People's faces.
People demonstrate a molded figurine.
People smear each other's cheeks with clay.
People smear each other with clay, children knead the clay with their feet.
People dance on clay.
A participant in the festival gives an interview in English, with simultaneous translation into Russian.
The legs of people dancing on clay.
People dance on clay to the beat of a drum.
A participant in the festival gives an interview (synchronously).
People beat drums and metal basins.
People dance hugging each other's shoulders.
24.04.1989
Armenia
Spring