African hunting (1988)

Water surface.

Fragments of the cast-iron fence decorations on one of the Neva embankments.

Newsreel: a panorama of one of the streets of Petrograd during the February Revolution of 1917, soldiers gathering for a rally, trucks with armed Red Guards and soldiers driving past them, the protesting soldiers greeting the passing trucks.

A car with soldiers stops on the street, starts moving, the rally participants raise their rifles in greeting.

Soldiers and residents of Petrograd greeting an armored car driving past them.

Residents of an African country butcher a buffalo carcass.

Fragment of a stained glass window.

Newsreel: a view of the Eiffel Tower structures during the ascent in an elevator, a view of part of the Trocadero (from above).

A Parisian tailor stands on the edge of the parapet of the Eiffel Tower before testing a homemade parachute suit in the 1900s, makes a jump.

A parachutist falling to the ground.

A view of part of a revolutionary rally in Russia in 1917. Portrait of N.S. Gumilyov.

Photograph of a skating rink in Kronstadt in the late 19th century.

Photo portraits of N.S. Gumilyov’s father and mother.

Photographs of a gymnastics class in one of the gymnasiums.

Photo portrait of Gumilyov in his youth.

Engravings depicting African fauna and scenes from the life of the peoples of Africa.

Photograph of a ward in a children’s hospital.

Newsreel from the early 20th century: a hunter shoots a zebra during a safari.

Ritual dances of African tribes.

Photo portrait of N.S. Gumilyov.

An African python coiled in rings.

Photograph of the Imperial family.

Photo portrait of the murderer of the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka Uritsky, L. Kanegisser, portrait of Uritsky.

Portraits of the head of the Secret Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission Ya.

Blumkin and the German ambassador Mirbach, killed by Blumkin.

Portraits of the press commissioner of the Northern Commune Voldarsky and the organizer of his murder Semenov.

Photo portraits of V.I. Kaplan, who shot Lenin, full-face and in profile.

Photo portrait of Lenin.

Newsreel from 1918: participants in a rally in support of the Red Terror with a banner.

Children's faces.

Armored cars on the streets of Petrograd, people dressed as devils dancing next to them.

Members of the Imperial Family and members of the Retinue during a ceremonial procession in the Moscow Kremlin in 1913. Representatives of the Orthodox clergy pass by, followed by Emperor Nicholas II and his wife.

Faces of ministers and members of the Retinue pass by, followed by Nicholas II with his wife and heir.

Members of the Imperial Family jump naked from the footbridge into the water during their summer vacation.

Members of the Imperial Family on a summer holiday by the water.

Cattle being slaughtered at a slaughterhouse.

A red flag flutters.

Newsreel from 1922: faces of starving children in the Volga region (still frame).

Participants in the 1927 May Day celebrations in Moscow in full-length costumes of priests and capitalists on the streets of Moscow.

A photo portrait of Gumilev in a military uniform from the First World War.

Newsreel from 1914-1916: a cavalry charge.

Combat action, shells exploding.

Russian infantry rises to the attack under artillery fire, interspersed with footage of dead soldiers and the performance of the cancan.

Local residents after finishing digging a mass grave.

The bodies of dead soldiers are being thrown into the mass grave.

White Guard poster symbolizing the revolution in the form of a skeleton, fragments of the poster.

The cloth of the red flag.

Photograph of the faces of the rally participants.

Kustodiev's painting "Bolshevik".

Panorama of the faces of wounded soldiers, nurses and orderlies of one of the military hospitals in the photograph.

Panorama of a dying volcano, bubbles bursting on the mud surface.

Red flower.

Python coiled up in rings.

Ripples on the water surface.

Fragments of a painted portrait of N.S. Gumilyov.

Fragments of a portrait of Gumilyov's wife, poetess A.A. Akhmatova, Painting depicting a tiger in the jungle.

Painted portrait of Gumilyov sitting in an armchair.

Portrait of Akhmatova.

Newsreel from the 1920s: a woman from one of the African tribes performs a ritual dance naked to the waist.

Knocked-out and icy windows of one of the Moscow houses after the October battles in Moscow in 1917, people at the wall of the building.

Writer Irina Odoevtseva talks about N.S. Gumilyov, his character, habits, manner of dress (synchronously and behind the scenes).

Photograph of Gumilyov among Petrograd poets.

Carpet on the floor and a pattern on the wallpaper in Odoevtseva's apartment. I. Odoevtseva in her room.

Panorama of part of the historical buildings in Leningrad, a blizzard is sweeping, bare branches and trunks of trees against the background of buildings.

Manuscripts of Gumilyov's poems, the cipher on the cover of the case from the Central State Archive of Literature and Art.

View of part of the rally (above, a fragment of a newsreel).

Photograph of children in fancy dress, the children's faces in the photograph.

Red flower.

Rabbit and boa constrictor in a cage.

The boa constrictor throws itself and coils itself around the rabbit, begins to strangle it.

The boa constrictor begins to swallow the rabbit whole.

Photographs of Gumilev during his stay in Abyssinia as the head of the expedition of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in 1913. A coiled boa constrictor, the head and tail of the boa constrictor, a pattern on the scales.

A photo portrait of Gumilev alternates with a newsreel of a crowd on the street.

Gumilev in a photograph of the participants of the "Sounding Shell" studio, razor-cut faces of people who went abroad.

The poetess Ida Nappelbaum talks about Gumilev, about his classes at the "Sounding Shell" studio, about Gumilev's portrait destroyed in 1937, about the reasons for her arrest in 1951 because of this portrait, reads excerpts from Gumilev's poems (synchronously and off-screen), the interiors of Nappelbaum's room, a portrait of Gumilev on the wall.

A crawling boa constrictor.

Panorama of the assembly hall in the building of the University of Marxism-Leninism, where the House of Arts was located in the 1920s and where Gumilyov taught students.

Stone carved decorations of the building's interiors, a panel on the ceiling.

Photograph of Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova and their son Lev in 1915. N.S. Gumilyov's son, historian Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov, talks about the reasons for his arrests in the 1930s and the course of the investigation (synchronously).

The son of N. S. Gumilyov, historian Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov talks about his time in prison, his scientific work, the books he wrote, the preparation of books written during the era of stagnation for publication, and talks about his father and his achievements (synchronously and behind the scenes).

Photograph of Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova, and their son Lev in 1915. Photographs of L. N. Gumilyov after the arrests. N. S. Gumilyov’s eyes in a photo portrait. L. N. Gumilyov lights a cigarette while sitting at the table.

A framed photograph of Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova, and their son Lev in 1915 on L. N. Gumilyov’s table.

Aloe and cacti on the windowsill, behind the scenes L. N. Gumilyov reads his father’s poems from the African cycle.

Newsreel: fleeing Africans from one of the tribes.

Fragment of a painted portrait of N. S. Gumilyov.

A stone fence in dense thickets, a woman's profile on a stone, a grave cross in the forest against the background of sunbeams (panorama).

Photograph of A. Blok's funeral.

Photograph of Blok in a coffin.

Newsreel from 1917-1918: a panorama of people's faces in one of the city squares.

A lioness in the African savannah.

The killing of a lion cub during a hunt.

The face of N.S. Gumilyov in a photograph.

The text of the Resolution of the Petrograd Provincial Cheka on the execution of the participants in the "Tagantsev conspiracy", published on September 21, 1921. Gumilyov's name is on the list of those executed.

Former assistant to the USSR prosecutor G.A. Terekhov talks about publications about Gumilyov, his non-participation in the anti-Soviet organization, about the study of the case materials on the charges against Gumilyov, tells the details of the case, about the possible rehabilitation of Gumilyov and his guilt in failing to report on the members of the anti-Soviet organization (synchronously).

Newsreel: ritual dance in one of the African tribes, playing African musical instruments.

Collage of portraits of the chairmen of the Petrograd Cheka during the first five years of its existence.

Photograph of one of the heads of the Petrograd Cheka I.P. Bakayev at the table in his office.

Texts of articles about executions and death sentences published in the newspaper Pravda in 1936. The name of I.P. Bakayev is on the list of those sentenced to death.

Photographs of rallies published in the newspaper.

Indigenous people of Siberia removing a bear from a wooden frame.

The bear is led on a rope.

The bear is tied between two posts.

Shamans beat a log suspended by its ends with sticks.

Shamans perform a ritual dance.

Panorama of an Evenk ritual event.

An archer pulls the bowstring, shoots an arrow into the side of a tied bear from close range, the face of an elderly woman beating a drum.

The archer continues shooting the tied bear.

Spectators at the event (panorama).

Removing an arrow from a killed bear.

Skinning the carcass of a killed bear.

A bear's heart on a bench, a man standing nearby.

Silhouettes of people climbing the stairs of the covered pedestrian crossing to Red Square in Moscow.

Retouched photo portrait by N.S. Gumilev.