Russian Translation (TV series)

Russkij perevod (Русский перевод "Russian Translation") is a 2007 Russian TV miniseries, based on the novel "The Journalist" by Andrej Konstantinov (1996). The plot is set in the 1980s and follows Soviet military advisors and translators working in Arab countries, specifically in Yemen and Libya.

Plot summary

The film story begins in the second half of 1984 - the final months of K. Chernenko era - ending in the first part of 1991 - a few months before the anti-Gorbathev's GKChP coup d'état attempt.

A hero - Andrey Obnorskij (Nikita Zverev), a young student-orientalist from Leningrad - along the line of the Soviet Defense Ministry falls on his Arabic language practice into Marxist South Yemen.

When he comes by "Aeroflot" Tu-154M plane in PDRY's capital Aden he feels shocked! He has to understand a local dialectal speech - but they learned only the language of the Quran! He has to survive in this Arabian heat - but they say Soviet predecessors - Englishmen - freed their servicemen, who served in Aden, from the penal responsibility for several years because of it.

Above this, Obnorskij has had to be a translator and interpreter in a newly forming elite 7th Airborne brigade of the General Staff of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, to take part in the near-boundary clashes of southerners with the northerners (the way to the unification of Yemen was entirely complex) as well as between government forces and "murtazaks", southern local armed opposition men, coming from abrod.

Without his own will, Obnorskij occurs in the middle of a dangerous plot with the participation of the KGB, GRU men, and Palestinians, who had to receive a large party of weapons from the USSR, and the quarreling fractions in the ruling Yemeni Socialist Party authorities, President Ali Nasser Muhammad supporters and opposition, before and during bloody combat on the streets of Aden. Yet in the Happy Arabia the hero of film will meet his love, and then will find two most loyal friends. Another Arabic language student-interpreter Ilya Novoselov (Andrej Frolov), a cadet from the legendary Moscow VIIJa (the Military Institute - formerly the Military Institute of Foreign Languages of the Red Army), will introduce him into the vicious circle of military interpreters ... The Palestinian instructor officer called "Sindibad" (Ramil Sabitov), the master of a hand-to-hand fighting, will teach him to fight.

After being graduated from the Leningrad State University and urgent service of two years in one of the Soviet flying military schools - already as the interpreter/translator- officer - Obnorskij goes again to the Arab World, now to Libya. This mission from "the Ten" (the 10th Main Direction of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defence of the USSR) also will not be calm. There will be some Moscow's "gilded youth" in his, senior translator, subordination, who must be run and translate! There will some modern Soviet-made fighters disappeare from the Benina Libyan airbase, and Obnorskij will be asked to clear up the situation for the Soviet competent bodies.

Finally, his friend Ilya Novoselov commits suicide leaving a very strange letter, and Obnorski begins his own dangerous investigation which leads him to his old enemy from Adeni times - his elder colleague and GRU man Kukarintsev (Pavel Novikov).

Historical accuracy

Despite of his own life experience as a military interpreter/translator with the Soviet military advisors in South Yemen and Libya the author of the novel, Andrey Konstantinov, stresses in the very beginning of his bestseller: any coincidences with real historical persons, places and events are sudden but all the differences from a real historical accuracy are "conforming to the laws of nature". It was really a big and hard task to camouflage a routine lowest ranking serviceman-interpreter every day work and life with a war and detective plot full of danger and adventure making a readable novel for a wide Russian public of the mid-nineties. To hyperbolise and puzzle true facts and change some geography and peoples' names and to generate new unknown "historical facts" to make a novel looking alive. However, despite the author's words he has told in his preface to the story, which were mentioned above, the young generation of Russian readers continue to read this novel.

The book format helps a lot in this switching on every reader's individual fantasy.However the film or series format demanded a return to some kind of remaking of true historical realities and to restore some general distinctive features of that time local environmental and cultural, political, ideological, military, social, native, conversational and many other exotic details, which are easy to be remembered and recognised by those who took part in that or similar events.

Music

The music for the film was composed by Igor Korneljuk. The song "Pismo" ("The Letter") is the first rap experience of this known composer from Saint Petersburg (Sankt Petersburg). Words - R.Lisits. Performance - Pavel Ostroumov & Nina Vedenina.

Cast

Russia

Nikita Zverev - Andrej Obnorskij
Andrej Frolov - Ilja Novoselov
Ramil Sabitov - Sindibad, Palestinian officer
Sergej Selin - major Doroshenko
Sergej Veksler - colonel Gromov
Pavel Novikov - Kukarintsev, then Djomin
Aleksandr Tjutin - KGB-man Tsarkov
Aleksandr Pashutin - general Sorokin
Aleksandr Tsurkan - the head of translators in Aden Pakhomenko
Aleksandr Jakovlev - colonel Gritsaljuk
Aljona Jakovleva - a wife of an artillery advisor
Tatjana Abramova - secretary Marina
Victor Alferov - translator Nazrullo Tashkorov
Michail Polizejmako - translator Fikret Gusejnov
Vladimir Epifantsev - translator Vikhrenko
Aleksandr Makagon - translator Vyrodin
Sergej Shekhovtsev - colonel Karpukhin
Anton Eldarov - translator Tsyganov
Ivan Mokhovikov - translator Gridich
Konstantin Karasik - driver Gena
Roman Kirillov
Kirill Pletnev - investigator Kondrashov
Marija Antipp - Irina
Anton Kukushkin - translator Kolokol'chikov
Denis Jasik - translator Bubentsov
Roman Nesterenko - military school lecturer
Aleksandr Abljazov - colonel Sectris
Vladimir Gorjushkin
Aleksej Oshurkov - "our man" in Benghazi
Pavel Smetankin

Azerbaijan

Polad Fuad Agaragim Ogly -
Fuad Osmanov - major Mansour
Firdavsi Atakishijev - colonel Isa

References

External links

• Russian Translation TV serial presentation, description and forum - in Russian and English
• A.Cherniaev's interview in IZVESTIA newspaper on March 5, 2007 - in Russian
• The First Channel World Service - Russian Translation release - In Russian
• Yemen Observer - Aden Civil War Recreated in Russian TV Drama
• Andrej Obnorskij on Buzzle.com: Looking For a "Good Boy" Hero For Russian TV Serials.
• "Changing Notions of Realism in Russian Primetime TV Drama and Film", by David MacFadyen (UCLA)
• Film about film.
• Andrej Konstantinov's biography