55 minSeason 1 • Episode 12
LatestAt the beginning of the war, the Germans throw their saboteur into the USSR. The landing is unsuccessful - the spy is captured by the NKVD. When trying to escape, a saboteur who turned out to be a Russian thief in law, accidentally remaining in the occupied territory, dies. In order to find the other spies involved in the operation, the security officers have to turn to the criminal's twin brother, a rural teacher. He takes the place of the deceased in the German intelligence network and enters into a deadly game...
Acting
Andrey Smirnov playing twins with zero mercy.
Production
Grim 1941 atmosphere that reeks ofauthentic desperation.
Writing
Tight plotting across 12 episodes of sustained dread.
Andrey Smirnov
Arkadiy Andreevich Istomin, of Peter and of Pavel father
Andrei Gusev
Geldrih
Yuriy Nazarov
Demin
Alexandr Novin
Mashka
Alyona Babenko
Rita
Aleksandr Bashirov
Dushyn
Karen Badalov
Dr. Zeller Joseph Davidovich
Larisa Malevannaya
Khromova Evgenia Tikhonovna
Leonid Okunyov
Arosev
Juozas Budraitis
Steingetz
Ramil Sabitov
Saboteur Mamedov
Aleksey Komashko
Dovylaytis
Nikolay Fomenko
Алексей Иванович Хромов
Evgeny Mironov
Пётр Истомин, Павел Истомин
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Smirnov reportedly lost 12 kilos to visually distinguish the emaciated prisoner twin from the rural teacher.
A rare post-Soviet production that doesn't romanticize either side — the NKVD are as terrifying as the Gestapo. Released during a Russian wave of WWII revisionism, it was largely ignored domestically.
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