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Denis Nikiforov, Vladimir Gostyukhin
Anna Astrakhantseva, Albert Filozov
Leonid Gromov, Arthur Vakha
Alexei Shevchenkov, Alexander Oleshko
Valeriy Afanasyev, Sergey Romanyuk
in a movie
SPIES MUST DIE. THE CRIMEA
Created by Mark Gres
Directed by Anna Gres
Director of Photography – Maksim Stepanov
Art Director – Larisa Zhilko
Music by Sergey Pilyutikov
General Producers – Yuri Minzyanov and Vlad Ryashin
Episode Seven
You got into a trap, didn’t you, Herr Koshkin?
I did.
I’ll clean the fire up tomorrow and will be the first to find your body.
I’ll put a red coral with a cut out letter “G” into your burnt hand.
According to the laws of heroic genre, the hero may only die in a fight
with the main villain and not with an ordinary fugitive thief.
Why didn’t you go for a walk today? You should go to the dancing ground
and invite Frau Charushina for a waltz. You’d have a great night,
and in the morning you’d follow the itinerary drawn by me again.
Why the hell did you come to Uzun-Syrt?
You missed. Don’t shoot or the fire will start ahead of time
and we won’t finish our conversation.
It was a good idea with the gliders, wasn’t it? Who could imagine
that a heap of metal on the plateau can fly? Who needs steel wings
and the engine when one has silk and wind?
“And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels,
Go and pour out the vials of the anger of God into the earth.»
What can a glider do? Nothing!
Throw a bomb? What good will it do?
It’s the same as shooting at sparrows from a cannon!
The Eastern people say: “If you want to steal a minaret, you shall first
dig out a well”. You only see the top of the minaret, Herr Koshkin.
Damn it, it caught fire. I’m going.
Wait! Wait a second! Tell me who you are!
"You spoilt everything; that’s why I won’t tell you that. "
Let your death be twice as agonizing for you won’t know whom to curse.
You’ll be dying for long. Angels that denounce God fall low, Herr Koshkin,
very low. To a place with tears, gritting of teeth and fire…
Tishler!
Sashenka!
Is your Roschin keeping silence?
He is.
He used to radio almost every hour but he is keeping silence now.
According to our agreement, he may keep silence for a day.
I beg your pardon. I came to you at the Bolshaya Mikhaylovskaya,
but I was detained and brought here without a word!
I’m very sorry, Comrade Tizyakov. We’re all nervous.
Did you come on business?
A parcel arrived for Boris. I brought it to you…
Thank you and excuse us once more.
— Thanks. — See him off.
“Tomorrow in the big hall of the sanatorium a trial against a group
of engineers-saboteurs from the Aviation Department will take place.
The entrance to the trial is open”.
The list of the accused… There is neither Junker nor Komissarov on it.
They couldn’t have been on this list. The Yalta trial was the sequel
of the Lipetsk trial. Komissarov was to be accused as the instigator.
“The Chairman of the Trial Commission – Ryabchenko M.R.”
Ryabchenko?
Ryabchenko Mikhail Rodionovitch. The mentioned sanatorium
is the former Yusupov’s palace and the future residence of the High Commander.
November 6, 1944. The Crimea. Karabi-Yayla Hole. The Bartyk Cave
Are you scared, General?
Are you?
If I give you an automatic gun, will you shoot at your own people?
No, I won’t.
You said that you wouldn’t walk but you did.
You said that you wouldn’t run but you did.
Now you’re saying that you won’t shoot…
Go to hell!
People always say that they won’t do something and they do.
They do because they want to live.
Don’t compare yourself to people.
Shine at that wall! I was hiding here from Wrangel in 1919.
Nobody of us surrendered then and I will not surrender now.
The memory about my dead comrades will sustain me.
You’re the one who shall be scared. Your comrades will give you in
with all your Fascist intestines!
Get up! Get up, ***!
It’s all right, guys. The exit is blocked…
No! No!
They can’t escape. Am I right? I am. Go forward!
Unload!
Line up!
“There are traces of arson and fire…”
Let’s act calmly and without bustle! But fast!
“…of steppe fires, nomad’s camps and lighthouses…”
Treplev and Gannochka – go to the pump. Vershinin and Babayev –
line people up! The water shall be delivered by chain, all the time!
“…the fire that used to lick witches and wizards,
chiefs, alchemists and fortune-tellers…”
You’re right, Comrade Feldman. Take hooks and save everything you can.
Aye-aye.
“…and the flames of revolts…”
Line up, damn it!
To the pump, faster!
I need to talk to you! - We will talk later.
Comrade Roschin… I mean Comrade Koshkin may be there!
Koshkin? What are you saying? What Koshkin? Vasya Koshkin?
He couldn’t have… Koshkin!
Koshkin, answer! Did you see Koshkin? Did you see Koshkin?
Give it to me! Pour water, be quick!
Why is it happening to me?
Save the bullets! Make solitary shots!
Be careful!
Surrender, brats! Your commander must have cheated on you.
Why die for him?
Golts chucked us… what a ***!
He couldn’t have!
Of course he could! We’re not the Arians! Do as you wish
but I’m sick and tired of it. Will you spare our lives?
You’ll have some kind of life…
It’s time to finish, guys. We will only be able to exit where we entered.
Guard this fish here. Shoot him if he moves. I’ll come back
and we’ll have an unpleasant conversation.
November 6, 1944. The Crimea. The village of Koreiz.
Cellars of Yusupov’s Palace.
There has been a prison here since 1917. The old man serves as a prison guard.
He served under the Germans too. We thought he was hiding
but it turned out that he was home.
Stand up! You may be free. Sit down.
Why didn’t you leave with the Germans?
Why would I leave with them? I stayed under the reds, the whites,
the Germans in 1918, Wrangel and these bloody Fascists.
Why would I run away? My conscience is clear. I did my job well.
The Germans were torturing our guerillas in these cells!
This is what prisons are for. One may get in an ordinary prison
for being drunk or for hooliganism.
However, only serious criminals were kept in this prison.
Those who were rightfully accused.
I don’t know whether they were accused rightfully.
I was entitled with guarding the prison. Nobody complained of me.
Even the inmates didn’t complain. Some went out and became
important people but they still dropped in sometimes to say hello.
Sit down.
Do you remember the trial against the saboteurs from the Aviation Department?
Of course I do. I remember it well.
It was when one inmate escaped with a guard.
What was the surname of the inmate?
Komissarov Henrik Ottovitch, number 1342.
How did you remember it?
I remember everybody… since the old regime.
How did he escape?
It was my day-off. When I came to my shift, the inmate wasn’t in his cell
and guard Savateyev was absent too. He could only escape
with the help of the guard. The doors are very reliable here.
They have ancient locks.
“Meyer and Sons”?
Prince Yusupov used to have wine cellar here. He kept the most valuable bottle
in this cell. Completely automatic doors and magnetic locks.
One could go out of the door but one couldn’t leave the corridor
even with a guard.
But he did escape somehow…
The devil must have helped him.
Has no one else ever escaped?
Only once. It was my day-off too. It was in Wrangel’s times.
You can’t visit him now.
I need to talk to him.
Who had this rosary?
— I don’t know that man. — You’re lying.
I saw the rosary
but I didn’t see its owner.
Don’t turn around.
However, I heard his voice. I recognized it. It was Mikhail Ryabchenko.
The fugitive’s name was Misha Ryabchenk.
Is there somebody alive?
It is quiet.
It’s good when it is quiet.
Why are you keeping silence? Are you dead or are you fighting the pain?
Are you a Georgian?
I’m an Armenian.
I knew some of your compatriots from the Dromedar Zonderkommando.
I don’t know them.
Salmon, you’re even the bigger ***
than I thought…
Salmon…
You shouldn’t have called me this fish name. If you kept silence
for a moment, Major would stay alive and would even be awarded
for the rescue of the General. But now… I’m sorry!
Ryabchenko, throw the weapons!
Ryabchenko.
We got to know about an agent nicknamed “Salmon” in 1939
but couldn’t find his trace. The only thing we knew was that he had
a high position in either party or ecumenical authorities.
In 1941 his trace was found in the Crimea. But the war started
and we lost track of Salmon again. We remember about that elusive fish
only in May of 1944. We asked a question about the reasons
the Crimea and Sevastopol fell despite adequate reserves for the defense.
This is when we remembered about Salmon.
In the occupied Sevastopol Ryabchenko was responsible
for the work of underground plants that produced ammunition.
There was never enough ammunition though the tunnels
of the champagne plants were full of trotyl. Hundreds of wagons!
Maybe it was just a muddle-up. And maybe it was a direct sabotage.
On July 30 all that arsenal exploded for an unknown reason.
Was Ryabchenko interrogated?
Of course. But he shifted the blame
on deceased General Tregubov.
Ryabchenko was concussed
and blocked by the shattered rocks. After the surrender of the city
the guerillas found him together without another wounded, Major Rymakov,
and sent them off to the sea. Our submarine picked them up.
General gave consistent evidence at the interrogation.
He was convincing but we still had some suspicions.
He has been under our observation for six months.
Sashenka…
Am I going crazy?
My name is Alexander Somov, Captain of the Border Troops,
*** and panic-spreader, the German spy, inmate number 13112
of the Sevastopol City prison at the Vosstavshij Street.
In July of 1942 Ryabchenko blew the store houses up
and was waiting for the Germans. But the Germans intended to keep that trophy
at the other side of the front line. General couldn’t refuse them.
To make his escape more plausible, Major Rymakov was found
among the heavily wounded. The surgeons trampled with his memory
and sent him and Ryabchenko secretly to the guerillas.
Why bother with organizing of his kidnapping?
Mikhail Rodionovitch must have noticed our special attention.
He had to lift the suspicions off. During the pursuit General was playing
a fearless Communist. His old liaison Golts was helping him.
The latter was nave enough to think that he’d leave the wounded General
to Grigoryan and the prisoners would testify that Ryabchenko
behaved impeccably. However, only Ryabchenko knew the real final.
He needed Golts dead. Not just dead but killed with his General’s hand.
If his plan had worked, I’d have believed him and even awarded the hero!
Then Ryabchenko would stay in Yalta and head the saboteurs right under our nose.
What shall I start with?
Start from the beginning, Mikhail Rodionovitch.
What if it happened very long ago?
It’s OK.
I’ll start from the beginning, then. From this very cell.
July 20, 1919. The Crimea. The village of Koreiz. Cellars of Yusupov’s Palace
Good evening, son.
Go away.
I don’t like priests.
Do you like smoking? I have good cigarettes.
We used such cigarettes to hand messages over.
It was a cigar-case of my battle comrade.
Do you know that you’ll be executed soon?
I know.
I hope that you’ll want to confess before your death
and return to the womb of Mother the Church.
I’ll come tomorrow. I hope we’ll talk.
In December of 1941 I was tried for standing to death with my battalion
by Kishinev, for the fact that I didn’t surrender but escaped with a rifle,
my party ID and epaulets. They didn’t shoot me
only because they lacked bullets and they needed slave force at the Champans.
When they were taking people up to the surface, we were the last.
It is understandable – they even failed to save all the wounded.
The explosion happened but I survived, though with disfigured face
and badly damaged legs. I took the papers from a dead ***.
You know the rest.
Who is she?
Larisa. It means “a seagull” in Greek.
She is my black seagull.
She is a local. She was helping the guerillas under the occupation.
Her only sin is that her father was a Greek. - Was she to be re-settled?
Her mother was allowed to stay as she was a Russian.
The authorities wanted to send Larisa to Kazakhstan.
I hid her in the old woman’s house. The locals didn’t go there –
they were scared. She lived there. When Rymakov came with his people,
we have to stage a comedy.
After that I moved her to my cellar.
Did Vershinin see you?
What about Schupkin?
No.
Who came to Schupkin and Rymakov?
I saw her too. She was in black.
She went out from the house of Lida the passport issuer at night.
You found her dead after that.
Are you sure that it was a woman?
I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I only saw the shadow.
What did you go to the burning house for?
I got to know that Filonov was a fugitive criminal.
He had a criminal tattoo on his chest – an eight-ray star.
Only authoritative criminals have such tattoos. However,
Filonov’s documents stated that he was convicted in a civil case.
So, I pressed on him. He promised to counterfeit papers for Larisa and me.
He did. But the revision started untimely.
The passports were in the sealed storage. If somebody found them,
it would mean the end of Larisa and me. Filonov hid the keys in his office
in a jar with drying oil. I used the fire to put an end to this story.
I saw you there. I couldn’t just leave you behind.
I read on a piece of paper from a cigarette’s case
that he was not a priest
but the German engineer Henrik Junker
and that I could trust him.
The next day he came again and left another note. He offered me an escape
in return for future cooperation with the German counter-intelligence.
Did you agree?
At those times only a fool wasn’t a German spy.
Shall I tell you the surnames?
No. Go on.
Father, I must search you. The convict will be executed at dawn.
I don’t want any problems.
Search me, son. It’s your duty.
I think the convict would like to confess before his death.
Please leave us for a few minutes.
You’ve searched me, haven’t you?
Do I need to sign it with blood?
Ink is more reliable.
I’d like to give a cross to the poor man.
It’ll support him during his last hours.
Show it to me.
In the name of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit… Amen.
This is for you…
You’re alive! You’re alive!
Which one of your many cat’s life did you use, vacationer Koshkin?
I don’t know. I think it’s the last one.
Why are you here? Let’s go to my place. I will bandage you.
I have tea and sugar, even ***. I just don’t have light.
The electric generator doesn’t work. I wanted to buy a kerosene burner
but haven’t done it yet. It’s OK, though. I’ll borrow one from Comrade Tishler.
I don’t know who controls this village…
It’s all right. Let’s go to my place!
Did you meet Junket after your escape?
No. I gave the cross back to a Golts.
I didn’t see Junker after that.
I always felt his presence, though. Golts brought “hellos” from him often,
together with money and weapons.
The Germans helped us greatly
with our fight against Wrangel and didn’t ask for anything in return.
When our forces entered the Crimea, I was sent to work for the party
to Ufa and then to the Far East.
I forgot about Junker and Golts.
But at the end of 1927 I was sent
to the Crimea and appointed a head of the trial against spies
from the Aviation Department.
January 6, 1928.The Crimea. The village of Koreiz. Cellars of Yusupov’s Palace.
Everybody has complains, Comrade Ryabchenko.
Stand up, everybody!
— Boss! — Wait! Listen to me! Boss!
If you pay attention to everybody, you’ll waste all your life
listening to their complains.
Comrade! Please sort it out! - It was a mistake!
I have what to say! I’ll tell you everything!
Boss! Comrade! Please!
— I’d like to confess. — Comrade… Boss…
That man’s surname was Komissarov. However, I recognized his voice at once.
He gave me a note. Junker wrote that my agreement to cooperate
with the Germans was with a reliable person
and that I’d get it only after he was released.
No way! I knew that Junker would keep me hooked for the rest of my life.
I’d like to get my agreement.
The host said that you’d get your paper later.
Give it to me! Old idiot!
I won’t give it to you!
You will, old ***!
Go away, or every day of your life will be Doomsday!
I killed her. I can’t explain why I took the rosary.
What about the child?
The child escaped. I failed to catch up.
I don’t know anything about the child.
I brought the cross to Junker the next day.
In the morning he was not found in his cell.
Did you let him escape? But…
I didn’t let him escape. I let him disappear.
That prudent German didn’t know that after the Great Crimean Earthquake
the exit from the cave was blocked.
He is still there.
He deserves it because
he made me cross the line.
What shall we do?
I was following a false trail all the day long.
It was a clever trick.
They failed to kill me. However, I believe
they’ll find out about it soon.
Roschin is keeping silence like an owl.
We’re cutting the floor plates.
Otherwise we won’t get to that underground kingdom.
We shall confirm Junker’s death. And in general…
we can’t have unknown underground premises under the residence
of the chief of the world revolution. Can you imagine?
These steel plates are 60 mm think – like in a tank!
Is he talking?
He talks so much that we have to listen to him in shifts.
We don’t have enough time to analyze his stories.
We’ll read the transcripts later and sort it out in earnest.
— Does it hurt? — I’m fine.
When I was a girl I got burned… not as much as you, but still
there was a bubble. It seemed to me that if the bubble burst I’d die.
You won’t do anywhere.
I need a radio and I’ll go. You shall go too.
With you?
No. Larisa and you shall run to the control point.
Call this number and dictate the text I wrote here – word by word.
We shall go now.
I’ll be fine.
We all will be fine.
I can’t promise that tomorrow your lives will change.
But I promise to do everything that I can for that.
You may do much more – forget about us… if we survive until tomorrow…
What can you promise me, Comrade Koshkin?
We’ll talk when we meet.
— Do you know how to use it? — I do.
Take Ryabchenko, an agent and go down.
Underground is so stabile!
As if 16 years didn’t pass! Do you understand?
I do.
Is it that cross?
It is.
Wait, guys. Junker used to keep cyanide in it.
I hope there is still something left for me…
Don’t hurry. The Soviet authorities are humane.
Maybe you’ll be spared your life.
My life? You won’t spare my life!
What a ***…
— What? — This is…
End of Episode Seven