A Soviet engineer fights bureaucracy, nature, and his own ideals in this forgotten TV epic.
64 minSeason 1 • Episode 3
LatestOleg Pronchatov, a young engineer at a logging company, is advocating the creation of a large timber industry complex on one of the northern rivers.
Acting
Igor Vasilev's Pronchatov burns with frustrated idealism.
Production
Authentic logging locations make the wilderness a character.
Writing
Vil Lipatov's script navigates 1973 censorship with surprising nuance.
Creators
Vladimir Nazarov, Vil Lipatov, Irina Mazuruk
Igor Vasilev
Олег Олегович Прончатов, главный инженер сплавной конторы
Yuriy Kayurov
Григорий Семенович Вишняков
Mikhail Gluzskiy
Никита Никитич Нехамов
Ivan Lapikov
Арсентий Васильевич Цукасов, секретарь обкома
Tamara Syomina
Настя Колотовкина
Inna Makarova
Капитолина Алексеевна
Gennadiy Yukhtin
Жора Чаусов
Mikhail Kokshenov
Степан Безродный
Igor Kashintsev
Глеб Алексеевич Поляков
Anatoliy Solovyov
Семён Кузьмич Бондарь
Aleksandr Khvylia
Павел Иванович Ошурков, директор леспромхоза
Valentin Abramov
Касьян Демидович Куренной, начальник строительного участка
Aleksei Pankin
Эдгар Иванович Огурцов, инженер сплавной конторы
Ivan Ryzhov
Михаил Николаевич, старый директор
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This 1973 miniseries aired during Brezhnev's 'stagnation' era, when Soviet TV rarely questioned industrialization so openly. Pronchatov's ecological concerns were genuinely radical for state television.
Director Vil Lipatov adapted his own novel but fought to keep Pronchatov morally ambiguous—the censors wanted a clearer socialist hero. The three-episode structure was a compromise; he wanted six.
SU
