85 minSeason 1 • Episode 4
LatestThe series is about the operation code-named "Trest", which under the leadership of F.E.Dzerzhinsky was carried out by the VChK to identify and eliminate the counter-revolutionary and monarchist underground on the territory of the USSR, associated with foreign white-emigrant organizations.
Acting
Dzhigarkhanyan radiates terrifying competence as the chessmaster Chekist.
Direction
Kolosov stages bureaucratic tension like a slow-motion trap snapping shut.
Igor Gorbachyov
Александр Якушев
Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
Артузов - чекист
Donatas Banionis
Эдуард Оттович Стауниц - барон
Artyom Inozemtsev
Алексей Зубов
Aleksei Safonov
Владимир Стырне
Yevgeny Gurov
Ртищев
Vilor Kuznetsov
Колесников/Косинов
Gennady Nekrasov
Николай Михайлович Потапов - генерал
Leonid Makaryev
self/kommentator
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Operation Trest ran 1921-1926 and convinced White Russian émigrés that a massive anti-Bolshevik network existed inside the USSR. It didn't. They funded it anyway.
Made during the Prague Spring's aftermath, this Soviet-Czech co-production let filmmakers explore state deception with just enough ambiguity to slip past censors — who apparently missed the irony.
SU
