The Russian Story

"The Russian Story" is a profile of Anatoly Rybakov, a best-selling Russian novelist. Like a plaster mold, his personal life follows the life story of Russia in the 20th. century. The film is structured around three major themes in Rybakov's life: Stalinist purges and the Second World War, the Holocaust and the persecution of the Jews, and the destiny and the future of Russia. Every chapter of the film corresponds to a book written by Rybakov. Heavy Sand talks about the horrors of the Holocaust, perpetrated by the Nazi troops in the Soviet Union. In the last part, The Memoirs, Rybakov draws conclusions from his life as a writer. He makes a sad point that human life has lost its value in today's Russia, a deplorable legacy of the Soviet State.