Tins (film)

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Tins
Konservy.jpg
DVD cover
Directed by Egor Konchalovsky
Written byYuri Perov
Starring Marat Basharov
Aleksei Serebryakov
Sergey Shakurov
Sergey Veksler
Dmitry Nagiev
CinematographyAnton Antonov
Release date
  • 25 January 2007 (2007-01-25)
Running time
96 minutes
Country Russia
Language Russian

Tins (Tins, Russian : Консервы, romanized: Konservy) is a 2007 film about a journalist who possesses information on uranium sales and is set up by his enemies and sent to prison. Initially the film was planned as a political thriller, but along the way it gained features of action with elements of mysticism and surrealism.

The film is full of vivid pictures of spy and terrorist games in Moscow, modern Gulag in the Far North, gold mines, escape with elite spetsnaz in the pursuit, underground community of permanently high punks, and other quite unusual settings.

The title, which literally translates as "Canned Food", has multiple meanings. One was introduced by Varlam Shalamov in his tales about Gulag, and it was called "calf" – a younger convict accepted to escape team for food, as a walking piece of meat. Another meaning is an interpretation of the film's idea: human beings are "sealed" structures that open only in extreme situations. The third meaning has to do with actual canned meat taken for escape: in the movie these cans play an important part because of their unexpected content.

The film was shot in Crimea, Ukraine, where director Egor Konchalovsky had found locations for shootings of Siberian taiga, Ural mines and Moscow streets. He had transformed Inkerman quarries into the Ural prison camp.

Marat Basharov, playing the journalist, had his head shaven for the role, and Sergey Shakurov, playing criminal boss or "thief in the law", had his body tattooed.

Plot

Igor Davidov, an international journalist, possesses dangerous information about high-ranking traitors, including an army general, a State Duma elected official and a well-known nuclear scientist who plan to sell weapons-grade uranium to a Middle East country.

The traitors realise that someone has leaked their plans. They trace the leak to Igor. Events turn nasty. The villainous General Astrahantsev kidnaps the children of loyal Commander Usoltsev, a veteran of the Chechnya war; the nuclear scientist is murdered. The conspirators succeed in framing Usoltsev and Davidov on charges of murder and drug dealing. Both men, who had not previously met, soon find themselves in a remote prison camp.

They try to discover the real reasons for their being in prison. Then with the help of criminals they escape from the camp to seek justice. They face many more tests; not everyone will live through the experience.


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gulag</span> Soviet forced penal labour camp system

The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word Gulag originally referred only to the division of the Soviet secret police that was in charge of running the forced labor camps from the 1930s to the early 1950s during Joseph Stalin's rule, but in English literature the term is popularly used for the system of forced labor throughout the Soviet era. The abbreviation GULAG (ГУЛАГ) stands for "Гла́вное Управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х ЛАГере́й", but the full official name of the agency changed several times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igor Kurchatov</span> Soviet nuclear physicist

Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, was a Soviet physicist who played a central role in organizing and directing the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solovki prison camp</span> First Gulag prison camp

The Solovki special camp, was set up in 1923 on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea as a remote and inaccessible place of detention, primarily intended for socialist opponents of Soviet Russia's new Bolshevik regime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soviet atomic bomb project</span> Russian program to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II

The Soviet atomic bomb project was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pevek</span> Town in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia

Pevek is an Arctic port town and the administrative center of Chaunsky District in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, located on Chaunskaya Bay on a peninsula on the eastern side of the bay facing the Routan Islands, above the Arctic Circle, about 640 kilometers (400 mi) northwest of Anadyr, the administrative center of the autonomous okrug. Population: 4,015 (2021 Census); 4,162 (2010 Census); 5,206 (2002 Census); 12,915 (1989 Soviet census).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atomic spies</span> WWII Soviet nuclear research spies in the West

Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold War. Exactly what was given, and whether everyone on the list gave it, are still matters of some scholarly dispute. In some cases, some of the arrested suspects or government witnesses had given strong testimonies or confessions which they recanted later or said were fabricated. Their work constitutes the most publicly well-known and well-documented case of nuclear espionage in the history of nuclear weapons. At the same time, numerous nuclear scientists wanted to share the information with the world scientific community, but this proposal was firmly quashed by the United States government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vorkuta uprising</span> 1953 gulag revolt in USSR

The Vorkuta Uprising was a major uprising of forced labor camp inmates at the Rechlag Gulag special labor camp in Vorkuta, Russian SFSR, USSR from 19 July to 1 August 1953, shortly after the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria on 26 June 1953. The uprising was violently stopped by the camp administration after two weeks of bloodless standoff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uranium mining in Kakadu National Park</span>

Kakadu National Park, located in the Northern Territory of Australia, possesses within its boundaries a number of large uranium deposits. The uranium is legally owned by the Australian Government, and is sold internationally, having a large effect on the Australian economy. The mining has been controversial, due to the widespread publicity regarding the potential danger of nuclear power and uranium mining, as well as because of objections by some Indigenous groups. This controversy is significant because it involves a number of important political issues in Australia: Native Title, the environment, and Federal-State-Territory relations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chifir</span> Tea drink

Chifir is an exceptionally strong tea, associated with and brewed in Soviet and post-Soviet detention facilities such as gulags and prisons.

<i>Gulag</i> (1985 film) 1985 American TV series or program

Gulag is a 1985 drama film directed by Roger Young, aired originally on HBO and later released to home video. It was reviewed by the New York Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian Alsos</span> Western term for Soviet harvesting of Nazi German nuclear assets, 1945-1946

The Soviet Alsos or Russian Alsos is the western codename for an operation that took place during 1945–1946 in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, in order to exploit German atomic related facilities, intellectual materials, material resources, and scientific personnel for the benefit of the Soviet atomic bomb project. The contributions of the German scientists is borne out by the many USSR State Prizes and other awards given in the wake of the second Soviet atomic bomb test, a uranium-based atomic bomb; awards for uranium production and isotope separation were prevalent. Also significant in both the first Soviet atomic bomb test – a plutonium-based atomic bomb which required a uranium reactor for plutonium generation – and the second test, was the Soviet acquisition of a significant amount of uranium immediately before and shortly after the close of World War II. This saved the Soviets at least a year by their own admission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laboratory B</span> Soviet nuclear research site, 1946–1955

Laboratory B, also known as Object B‌ or Object 2011 during its period of operation, was a former Soviet nuclear research site constructed in 1946 by Lake Sungul in Chelyabinsk Oblast in Russia. Operated under the 9th Chief Directorate of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs, it was a major site for the Soviet program of nuclear weapons that works on handling, treatment, and the use of the radioactive products generated in reactors, as well as radiation biology, dosimetry, and radiochemistry. It had two divisions: radiochemistry and radiobiophysics; the latter was headed by N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij.

<i>Gulag: A History</i> 2003 book by Anne Applebaum

Gulag: A History, also published as Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps, is a non-fiction book covering the history of the Soviet Gulag system. It was written by American author Anne Applebaum and published in 2003 by Doubleday. Gulag won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the 2004 Duff Cooper Prize. It was also nominated for the National Book Critics Circle prize and for the National Book Award.

The mineral industry of Russia is one of the world's leading mineral industries and accounts for a large percentage of the Commonwealth of Independent States' production of a range of mineral products, including metals, industrial minerals, and mineral fuels. In 2005, Russia ranked among the leading world producers or was a significant producer of a vast range of mineral commodities, including aluminum, arsenic, cement, copper, magnesium compounds and metals, nitrogen, palladium, silicon, nickel and vanadium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karlag</span>

Karlag was one of the largest Gulag labor camps, located in Karaganda Oblast, Kazakh SSR, USSR. It operated during 1930—1959.

<i>Nuclear Secrets</i> 2007 British TV series or programme

Nuclear Secrets, aka Spies, Lies and the Superbomb, is a 2007 BBC Television docudrama series which looks at the race for nuclear supremacy from the Manhattan Project through to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

The First Circle is a 2006 Russian miniseries directed by Gleb Panfilov, with ten 44-minute episodes. It is based on The First Circle, the novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn based on his experiences in Joseph Stalin's Gulag. The series was first broadcast in the Russia on Telekanal Rossiya on January 29, 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazino tragedy</span> 1933 mass deportation in the Soviet Union

The Nazino tragedy was the mass murder and mass deportation of around 6,700 prisoners to Nazino Island, located on the Ob River in West Siberian Krai, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, in May 1933. Sent to construct a "special settlement" and to cultivate the island, the deportees were abandoned with only scant supplies of flour for food, little to no tools, and virtually none of the clothing or shelter necessary to survive the harsh Siberian climate. Conditions on Nazino Island deteriorated quickly and resulted in widespread disease, violence, and cannibalism. Within 13 weeks, over 4,000 of the deportees had died or disappeared, and the majority of the survivors were in ill health. Those who attempted to leave were killed by armed guards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vorkutlag</span> Soviet-era prison/labor camp

The Vorkuta Corrective Labor Camp, commonly known as Vorkutlag (Воркутлаг), was a major Gulag labor camp in the Soviet Union located in Vorkuta, Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. It was in operation from 1932 until 1962.

This article lists events from the year 2016 in Russia.