Murder on Bald Spit 'First of all, you need to touch your heart, and then you will be able to touch another' (Valery Zolotukhin)
The first serious film debut of Valery Zolotukhin was the role of the district Seryozhkin in the Soviet detective of 1968 & #39; The owner of the taiga' based on the novel by Boris Mozhaev ' The power of the taiga'. The writer also wrote the script, and the director of the film was Vladimir Nazarov. Full-scale shooting took place in the village of Vyezhiy Log of the Mansky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and on the Mana River. The plot - ' Emergency ': in a small taiga village, where everyone knows each other, there is a night robbery of a local store. The precinct suspects that he confessed to theft is innocent, and decides to take red-handed the true criminal - foreman of smelters Ivan Ryaboy in the person of Vladimir Vysotsky. The film was so liked by the audience that according to their numerous requests, the sequel was filmed ' The Missing Witness' based on the novel by Boris Mozhayev of the same name. The story ' The power of the taiga' was written in 1954, filmed in 1969. In the same 1969, Mozhayev wrote ' The Missing Witness' but shooting a new picture began only three years later.
I must say that initially Boris Mozhayev was not going to write a trilogy about the same site. In ' The authorities of the taiga' his surname is Serzhkin, and in the novels ' The Loss of the Witness' (1969) and ' The Fall of the Forest King' (1975) he is a lieutenant and then a captain of the police Konkov. He became Serzhkin at the request of many viewers. The second film was shot in the Buryat village of Kiren. The village is located in the center of the district, on the southern side of the Tunkin Valley, along the banks of the Kiren River, near its confluence in Irkut. The origin of the name Kiren local population produces from the Buryat Hiree - "crow". However, there is a more scientific version of Samoyedic or Evenki origin from the word "kiri". The action of the picture takes place in a distant taiga village. District Vasily Serezhkin is sent to serve in a new district. In the first days of his duty on the shore of the Bald Spit, the body of the zoologist Kalganov, who died from a shot from a hunting rifle, is discovered. At the crime scene, Seryozhkin does not find any evidence except a trace from a size 37 sneaker.
The circle of suspects primarily includes local hunter-poachers, with whom Kalganov has long and principally fought. The only possible witness, Ivan Sadyk, the cook of the logger brigade, disappeared in the taiga. Hunters say he may have fallen victim to a man-eating tiger. Valery Zolotukhin is a popularly crafty village policeman. He not only knows how to soulfully sing a Russian song ' Oh, frost, frost!' but also catch criminals in the Siberian taiga. But one can't do that. We need helpers. True, some of them fall well-deserved suspicion, but Serzhkin never rushes to conclusions. The village is not a city. Everyone here knows each other. And even if you did not see something, you must have heard ' You just need to ask ' the right question ' and then the thread will stretch. For some, the second film may seem a bit boring. Partly true, because there is no such bright iconic figure as Vysotsky. But there is not only a detective as such, but also the drama of a person who heartily rooted for the unique nature of the region. In the film, only three excerpts from the notes of the murdered zoologist were heard, in the story they are much more, because the writer Boris Mozhayev himself speaks through the mouth of Kalganov.
': Reserves and sanctuaries are turned into hunting farms for the chosen ones. And those "on the order of exception" hunt when it comes. They beat everything in a row - both maters and puppies. They beat bears, moose, deer, cabaret. Even minks, sables, beavers do not regret. “Now the songbirds have arrived. One regional newspaper announced: "Let's catch twenty thousand heads of valuable birds for export!" And ours are not behind them, they are competing. “Even ant eggs are exported; overseas philistines feed them to their canaries. Ant heaps burn from mischief, and our forest remains defenseless, devoid of these tireless trappers of all aphids. Acquisition is the scourge of the Russian taiga. For some reason, everyone thinks that if the people, it means no one. Kalganov didn't think so. He cared about everything. That’s why he was called ' inconvenient' human. He did not let them steal, shortened the hands of poachers, argued with logging, through the fault of which the fish could not reach the spawning grounds. It turns out that many could settle scores with a zoologist. But who? Zolotukhin is perfectly visible ' male' vein: at first glance, simple and even naive, but notices the most minor details, so the investigation is gradually approaching its logical finale.
If in the first film there was an excellent duet Zolotukhin - Vysotsky, then there are no less bright types among the indigenous inhabitants. I would especially like to mention the hunter-guide Tyhe - an incomparable game of Maxim Munzuk! No matter how many times I look at it, there are always positive emotions. Naive as a child, but wise thoughts more than trees in the taiga. Like Tyhe and his niece Inga. Martha Zoriktueva is without a doubt the most striking female character in the picture. I saved one hero for last. It is an Ussuri or Amur tiger in all its glory. In the film there is an episode where Serzhkin talks about the weight of the tiger: ' Hunters say that he weighs 800 kilograms. It's probably a ton of lies!' Of course they are! The body length of the male Amur tiger from the nose to the tip of the tail reaches 3.5 meters, and the weight is up to 250 kilograms. And only in some cases more than 300! In the year when the film was shot, according to one-time accounting, there were only 150 individuals for the entire Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territory. Given this, it becomes clear the final act of Tyhe. There is no animal more terrible than man himself. . .