Pity the old man... I, alas, watched this simply excellent mini-series with a grand delay at 13 years old. Well, here's what happened. But after watching, I became ashamed of myself and many other citizens of the Soviet country, cowardly, in absentia “sniffing” “dear Leonid Ilyich” through anecdotes, nicknames ("Battleship, for example, it seems to be already perestroika), for the most part really (!) thrown to us “because of the bumper”. Here's a fact. When L. I., it must be thought, by the decision of the Politburo, was elected/appointed Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (for which Podgorny was sharply removed from the place, which was actually the right political step: the Western powers wanted to have contacts and conclude fateful agreements not with the leader of the ruling party, but with the head of state!), the notorious Voice of America immediately made anecdote "stuffing": "In Russia now a new tsar." But what should he be called, Leonid the First or Ilyich the Second?
... So, I was really ashamed: with my past, youthful maximalist blasphemy, I beat an old man who was decrepit and almost weak-willed (the party line, the Politburo opinion). It is neither human nor divine. Sorry, "Dear L.I.!" Such is the power of real Art, and the artistic and historical persuasiveness of Snezhkin, and the brilliant work of Shakurov! I don’t want to go into the interpretation of images (but I really liked the “shaking” image). Tikhonov, Prime Minister; his predecessor Kosygin was a figure, and cool, and this one - according to the surname!, events, actions. It seems that all the fault and trouble of Brezhnev (which is reflected in the series) was that over the years he became softer, more compliant, calmer, in some way likening himself to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, nicknamed "The Quietest" (although there was a church schism, Copper and Salt riots, Razin uprising, Pereyaslav Rada, and under Brezhnev - a bloody war in Afghanistan, the need of which he was convinced by members of the all-powerful Political Bureau, by the way, only one of the Soviet leader in Afghanistan, by the way, spoke out of the Soviet army after this.) And here's what's really interesting. I don’t know if it happened by accident, or by “special idea”. Snezhkina (if the latter, I am ready to beat my palms to the blood in applause to the chief editor!), but Brezhnev in his youth, played by Arthur Vaha, has a height of 1 m 90 cm, and Shakurovsky L. I. much lower.
Ask me (yes, thank you for asking!), why didn’t I put the miniseries Brezhnev’s Higher Appreciation, which I almost praised above? I replied, 'Because it was not enough for me!!! As well as other reviewers and just viewers. I don’t know how many episodes were planned for a specific budget and plan of the broadcaster, but I know that- Little! There is a stark lack of “sleepy” or “sleepless” memories of L. I. about his “most important” deeds, about which he wrote, or dictated to assistants who became books – “Small Land”, “Revival”, “Celina”. We studied these books, like all the Soviet people, in school! And, I think, it would be an artistic untruth that a person, feeling / anticipating that he will soon pass away to the other world, did not remember ... at least war! Well, even I remember. On the "Small Land" political worker Brezhnev conducted a party campaign; shelling began, and L.I., feeling in his gut that it would be bad, sharply ordered to change the "dislocation" "300 meters to the right." Soon, a shell fell on the place where they were previously sitting. How can you forget and not remember before you die? Bottom line: it would be necessary to have a couple more episodes, so that L. I. Truly, remembering all that he experienced, peacefully rested in the Boz... But we have what we have...
7 out of 10