Siberians
About Siberians
On New Year's night an old hunter tells two schoolboys how Stalin, escaping exile, fell through the ice and was saved by a hunter, then gave that man his pipe. The hunter died in the Civil War, and the pipe passed to another partisan. It can be known by a bullet mark on the stem. Sixth-grader Seryozha Krylov and fifth-grader Petya decide to find the pipe and give it back to Stalin.
Cast & crew
More about Siberians
Lev Kuleshov directed Aleksandr Vitenzon's script. O. Kolodny produced. Mikhail Kirillov photographed the black-and-white film, and Zinovi Feldman wrote the music. The story is set in Siberia. Wikidata places the shooting in Murmansk Oblast.
Themes
Background
A 1940 children's adventure built on a tale of Stalin's exile and a gifted pipe.
Making
Kuleshov made the children's picture at Soyuzdetfilm, with Gelovani in the Stalin part he often played.
Look
Mikhail Kirillov shot the black-and-white feature, with location work in Murmansk Oblast for a story set in Siberia.
Music
Zinovi Feldman wrote the score.
Preservation
The film survives and is on Wikimedia Commons. It is also the film featured in the 1969 documentary Effekt Kuleshova.
Notes
- Aleksandr Kuznetsov plays Seryozha. Aleksandr Pupko plays Petya. Aleksandra Kharitonova plays sixth-grader Valia. Mariya Vinogradova plays Galka.
- Daniil Sagal plays hunter Aleksei, Valia's uncle. Georgi Millyar plays Grandfather Yakov. Andrey Fayt plays Dr. Vasili Vasilievich. Dmitry Orlov plays the storyteller Doshindon.
- Mikheil Gelovani plays Stalin.
- Russian sources call these the first film roles for Kharitonova, Kuznetsov, Pupko, and Vinogradova. IMDb lists it as Aleksandra Khokhlova's last film.
- The Russian title is Сибиряки. A Kommersant account of the legend names the village Novaya Uda.
Scenes
- The old hunter tells the New Year story of the pipe.
- The boys set out to find the stem marked by a bullet.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1940. Сибиряки.webm)
