Broken trough For me, Ivan Gerasimovich Lapikov is beyond any doubt a great actor. His film characters are so bright and reliable that you perceive them exclusively as living people, as genuine folk images. Ivan Gerasimovich began acting in films in 1954. Popularity came to the artist in 1964 with the release of the film “Chairman”. Perhaps it was the incredible popularity of the picture, which was watched by 33 million viewers, that helped director Budimir Metalnikov to shoot Lapikov in this extremely reliable film. Various films were shot about the post-war village, reflecting in different ways the incredibly difficult life of the very first post-war years. However, few of them look so difficult.
Lapikov’s hero, Egor Bainev, returns home after German captivity. His war-torn soul craves only one thing: peace. Quietly work on the earth, "raising" daughter and son. To love a wife who has been separated for years. To support the mother, on whose fragile shoulders during the war and captivity lay all the cares for her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. With pleasure working on the ground, Egor dreams of "quiet happiness": "buy a cow so that the children grow up healthy, cut down a spacious house so that there is enough space for future grandchildren." Simple peasant happiness, which lived for many generations. But the grain received for workdays puts an end to his dreams. There's a tax on fruit trees. And where to get money, if in the bins of hunger the mouse hanged?
The post-war period is the most difficult for the whole country. The economy is in decline, industry is in ruin. The government is taking unpopular measures. Wages for members of the collective farms were not accrued. All income after fulfilling obligations to the state (mandatory supplies and payment of in kind for the services of machine and tractor stations) was at the disposal of the collective farm. Each collective farmer received for his work a share of the collective farm income in accordance with the working days worked out by him. During the first years of the restoration of the national economy, including in connection with the drought and the general decline in yield, as well as the increased need for grain by the state, the issuance of grain and legumes for workdays on collective farms decreased even more, which led to famine in the winter of 1946/47. In 1946, more than a third of kolkhoz workers received from 100 to 300 grams of grain for 1 working day. Egor and his wife Anna worked 615 working days of 120 grams for each, and received for their work 73 kilograms 800 grams of grain.
It is hard to watch the scene in the bath, where Egor says goodbye to his dream of “living like a human being”. Vodka - it will suck anyone, because everyone drinks. Who has the right, who has the wrong, and who has the wrong. Bay mountain "white", Egor leaves the kolkhoz "to work". With a heavy heart, he leaves home, but otherwise it is impossible - the family needs to live somehow, and taxes must be paid. And went hereditary grain grower "destiny to moose" in search of earnings. Worked well, on my conscience. He spent little on himself, everything for his family and children, so that he did not feel deprived, so that money for a cow and a new house was spent. So Yegor pulled the “long ruble” behind him. He would at some point come to his senses, stop, look back at his unsettling “road life.” I didn’t stop, I didn’t look back, because “there” you can earn 2000 “re”, and “there” – as much as 5000!
Summing up your own life is always unpleasant. It seems that once you draw a line under what was, what will be will disappear. But sometimes you have to. At least in order to understand: where exactly your path went steeply to the side. And then look deep and deep into yourself and believe that you can still come back.