Hooking An External Harddrive To A Tv

Ikea in Russia - Thank you, "image" newspaper!

Khimki, near Moscow (March 2000). "There is still snow in Moscow, and it is very cold this morning. A transporter would bring furniture into the camp. Two more hours until opening! Nevertheless, thousands of Russians waiting in front of the entrance of the blue and yellow furniture store. They do now have the furniture with the funny name. Since yesterday, there are also Ikea in Russia. "



furniture truck was not visible, two hours before the opening were not sure thousands of Russians at the door and it was not really cold. But a degree of artistic freedom and a few minor factual errors should be conceded to the great tabloid newspaper with the big letters already. After all, it was a historic event: the first Ikea in Russia. And a picture from my camera the first time in the Bild-Zeitung.

For a small radio report I had gone that morning in the Moscow suburbs. The legendary CEO Ingvar Kamprad had arrived in the canteen, there was smoked salmon and Swedish Köttbullar with Preißelbeersoße. Because there was to win an Ikea-living facility, many people actually came.


imprint on the second page

I've just been cutting together the original sound of the opening party, as Inna, the photo editor of rufo, called. The "Bild" urgently looking for photos of the opening, the big photo agencies had apparently slept through the appointment. Coincidentally, I had made for my private album a few pictures to finally fully shoot an old movie. I unwound so quickly the film cartridge from the camera, ran to the nearest photo studio that had a flash development in the offer and brought the - my Very humble opinion - shots quickly to rufo office.



The "image" editorial was obviously very pleased, a snapshot is printed on the second page. Meanwhile, I can probably tell: The ten-year-old film camera had only two functions: a button to turn on and off and a timer. The flash was a long break, and what was a zoom, I knew then just hearsay. The photo-fee was therefore more than twice the original price of the apparatus. Thank you, "image"!

Alvin And The Chipmunks Stuffed Animals

Value Apatheid

Astrakhan (May 1998). "Go to hell along with your hotel!" Enraged, I stormed out of the hall and dragged Anna with. After a few years ago Russia was hardly a situation in which I was really angry. The young woman at the front had made it. Completely emotionless, she had insisted that I use for my half of a double room, we wanted to rent, should pay twice as much as my wife for her. Foreigner price. So that was just in Russia.

Hotel "Lotos", was a great block and right on the bank of the Volga, and only a few steps from the white of Astrakhan Kremlin a thoroughly Soviet house and still a best addresses in town. On the river banks were lined up the small places where all kinds of fish were prepared. At garden chairs could on the last kilometers of the Volga look before it reached the Caspian Sea, to drink a Pepsi-Cola and eat fried sturgeon with French fries. The breakfast in the "lotus" was served on the Roof, mashed potatoes with sausages and ketchup - so could not start the day well. Evening two young men knocked on the door and asked me if I would not chance something, "relax." An inappropriate range for my honeymoon, I thought.


just behind the burning garbage containers no foreigner price

In the "lotus" it went to the way in hundreds of other Russian provinces. Prostitutes, cooked Würtschen with mashed potatoes for breakfast, a "women's floor" on each floor, bath seat - and of course a peppered special price for foreigners. So it was just normal. Upon our arrival I had with the price-apartheid but no longer want to resign. My call for the same price remained unheard, angry growling of constitutional violation and disregarded laws had no effect, not even a Russian student card would have brought the price closer to Russians.

So we left the "lotus", I left Anna with the luggage back on a park bench on the Volga and the hotels would run around fast. United was not the selection. A hotel in downtown was closed for renovation, in the other a few years ago Anna had once stayed with a girlfriend - and witnessed unknown attempted at night, from the outside to go into her room. There remained a third address in walking distance. Also situated on the Volga river. However, I lost my way in a settlement from run-down apartment blocks.

"Where is it here to the hotel?" I finally asked two boys playing in the dusty street football. They were very helpful and told me the way: "Behind the blue panel to the right, to the burning garbage containers over," they pointed to the black Smoke cloud on the end of the road. "There it is." The hotel was it really, it was not even a foreigner deal, because probably over dared hardly alien to the burning pile of garbage. Somehow inappropriate for a honeymoon.

There seemed to be a major embarrassment: An hour after I had run furiously to brag from the "lotus", we were way out for lack of crushed back to the reception. I threw my passport at the reception desk. "A single night," I said as unfriendly. "Tomorrow we go to another city." The Volga was finally long enough.

This sentence was unexpected effect. With a loud clatter printed the reception woman from our account - and lo and behold at once our double room cost only ordinary domestic prices. We have not had much opportunity to breakfast sausages on the roof terrace to enjoy.

No ticket counter at the station

slowly disappeared in the nineties, the discrimination of foreign price of Russian life. Soon there was only one flight ticket price for all the hotels in big cities, especially the expensive, accustomed from the tariff-apartheid. Other bodies were found to be bastions of the old order. The Kremlin Museums and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg demanded by foreign Guests sometimes ten times for a ticket. What the early nineties, perhaps justified might have been more bizarre with each passing year.

For foreigners, it was almost impossible to pass the entrance ticket to Russian control. The clothes, the facial features, the look, the way in which the camera was hung around the shoulder, there were hundreds of little things that betray the foreigner, even if he is good Russian language, or counted the money for the Russians map exactly onto the counter had set. Friends from the West, that I tried it but had to leave before carefully instruct. If they like the shirts stuck in his pants and otherwise made no mistakes, we made it sometimes.

The railway, however, were all the tricks from the start Love's Labour's Lost. In order to combat the rampant black market tickets, tickets since the early nineties, only upon presentation of passport sold, the name was written on the ticket. When boarding the train the guard could check the papers. It was therefore particularly galling that the train slowly separated from the special treatment for foreigners. At some point the fare is well aligned. But tickets to foreigners have been shared only with a few special funds sold, but not normal at the counters.

was in Moscow this System even partially beneficial. In place of the three stations for example, where the snakes accepted in the summer months enormous proportions, the higher ticket sales took place at the foreign box office one floor often only a few minutes. Elsewhere, the situation is not so pleasant. In the city of Rostov-on-Don million could buy about a foreigner at the train station at all any tickets. The only switch, where that was possible, was in the office of the former Soviet state company "Intourist". And that was about five kilometers from the railway station.

Moreover must be noted in fairness that the foreigners do not represent the prices of the Russians summit of the impossible. As in some other situations, the Ukrainians put their big brothers in the shade. In the Kiev hotels were at the same time, three price groups: the least the Ukrainians paid themselves, Russians and visitors from other former Soviet republics had to dig deeper into their pocket and pays most of course also clients from the "Far Abroad" for the same performance .

Sailboat Congratulations Card Wedding

's afraid of the KGB - If Chekists taps change

Moscow (August 1999). The elderly gentleman had screwed up his eyes, with distrustful gaze wondered what the girl as to think Russia so interesting. And our Swiss intern Claudia replied enthusiastically. Narrated by the volunteer in Belarus, and I translated. The older Mr. eventually you should issue an official pass for the Broadcasting House of Moscow Radio.

When Claudia told of her work at a small non-governmental organization, the Lord became more attentive. By the time she began to tell of the evil Lukashenko's regime, I decided to intervene. The gentleman at the desk told only a very short and very freely retold his version, so all water, the Swiss said. "I think you do not know me properly translated," she said as we walked back down the stairs to the German editor. "Yeah, but you wanted to get the badge."

with Argus eyes, the Soviet power watched over "Radio Moscow". No word should get out of the radio station out into the world that is not the general line of state and party in line. You had not an expert on espionage and counter-espionage to be to imagine it: not only because of the many foreigners in the editorial offices of the KGB also had his men on the radio. Editors who wrote down what they thought colleagues, professionals who peered behind the foreign translators.


Two Chekists for foreigners care

Only occasionally were the "fighters of the invisible front" gone through major blunder. After the Soviet invasion such as in Afghanistan, told journalists the veterans of the "Voice of Russia," a newscaster had spoken of the English broadcasting service for days of an "invasion." This was according to the official version, but a brother the help of the "limited military contingent".

who spied exactly in the German editorial colleagues, will probably always remain their secret. However, there were two floors above the German broadcasting service, two elderly men, officially off to take care of the foreigners employed at the transmitter. Even if they never had anything to do with the KGB and its successor agency - with all their occurrence If the suspicion is pushed to very simply that I was never a doubt in their own employer.

One of them was an amiable buddy type, the other usually looked very grumpy and put constantly uncomfortable, probing questions, if you wanted something from him. Normally, only one of them sat in the small office. It was like a spy movie: good investigator, investigators evil.

The fees related to the Russian foreign radio were the late nineties so low, that every translated Din-A4-side were rewarded with just a few rubles. The translators, some lived off the money tapped, the lyrics down in a breathtaking staccato pace. For Foreigners, however, it was an important reason to have to queue at the "Voice of Russia»: a furnished service apartment - for rent, so symbolic, such as low salaries. And as to explode in the housing market, prices were beginning, that was a considerable financial burden.

For nearly a year, I came to enjoy such an accommodation with two rooms on the Miklukho-Maklaj Street, overlooking a parking lot full of cars, their bright alarm systems every night howl when a cat jumped on the hood. The apartment was in a pitiful state.

official residence with alarms concert

The "nice" of the two Chekists from the eighth floor of the radio station had shown me the accommodation, guided me through that zerwetzten chairs cluttered room. He handed me the keys, I signed a transfer protocol, which includes the chair with the fractured leg was listed. Then I was back in the new accommodation, somewhat depressed because of the garish green wallpapers and the stuffy mattress in the bedroom.
should
The next morning I still get a lease in the immigration department. There was only the Grim. "Well, how do you like the apartment?" He grumbled. "Well, frankly," I hesitated for a while about whether I should find fault with the same. "It's broken a lot there." Then I had that all cabinet doors are broken, the color crumbly from the kitchen ceiling and all the faucets should be replaced urgently, but otherwise the location of the apartment was very conveniently located.

The gloomy Chekist looked at me: "You do not think that we enjoy, our staff to put into those homes," he growled. It was now even no money to keep the accommodation in good shape. Hard times make Russia by now. "Well, and because of the shortcomings, I'm going to Gennadi Wassiljewtisch send to you."

Gennady Vasilyevich was nice of them. At first I thought I had misheard. What did the old man with my dripping taps, I could not quite understand. I would now replace the KGB about the seals? Had I misheard?

But in fact, came forward Gennady Vasilyevich Germany a day later in the newsroom. He had heard that I had noticed some flaws and he would like to eliminate. Whether there was a morning where I could once again be left him the house key, he said. For a moment I wondered if the old people there could have such an ulterior motive. If they wanted to bug me the apartment? This idea I soon discarded, the condition of the official residence was more a sign that the Russians and the money for modern listening devices many years ago, had gone out in better times.

chocolates for the state security

When I arrived several days later by the editors back home, I was quite amazed: Gennadi Vasilyevich was repaired in the morning, in fact, the cabinets, screwed a new faucet in the bathroom. I found that only the deepest shame. So far, it was now already come, that an intelligence had to remove close to retirement age a young lad from abroad such trifles craftsmanship. I never should have been satisfied, angry I am at my convenience, ran down the supermarket "7 Continent "and bought my friendly KGBler a box of chocolates.

I wanted to bring him the next day to the office. There was however, would not the unfriendly companion. He looked very angry. "Excuse me, where is because Gennady Vasilyevich?" I asked. "The last was yet with you in the apartment," hissed the Grim. "Afterwards he felt bad. Very bad. The heart. He is now only once a week on sick leave. "

This day brought me a real eye-opener. The Russian secret service, it turned out, was not only composed nasty henchmen a lousy regime. Not only from dissidents unscrupulous hunters, like you could take a Westerner. But also very nice, older men who come in the sizing of doors quite out of breath. The Chekist - a human being like you and me.

Mild Alopecia Areata Stories

The "Voice of Russia": desk with Kremlin view

Moscow (December 1998). Only a few radio stations can boast that their listeners on a regular basis in danger went, not to miss the broadcasts. The International Radio Moscow once belonged to this category. During the Second World War, the death penalty was on the interception of the German program. The listeners could be Undeterred, the information was too tempting, so sounded quite different than the propaganda of the Nazis.


Nikolai Jolkin, Emilia Lebed and "Voice of Russia" junior

Radio Moscow, the Soviet international broadcaster, had for decades the official position of the Communist leadership sent out into the world. In part, the Moscow radio station into several dozen languages praised the socialist system in the sky and exposed the crimes of capitalism. Left emigrants from all over the world working at the station as translators, editors or stylistic spokesman.

During the Cold War with Moscow radio worked only hand-picked journalists, a job with international radio was considered Dream job. After all, the editors had access to the Western press, the chance to travel abroad - and the level of propaganda was not as clumsy as the other Soviet media. Vladimir Posner, Yevgeny Kiselyov, the founder of the legendary radio station "Echo of Moscow" - they all came from the international broadcasting. Not to mention: The low cost of canteen Radio Moscow was the best of Moscow after the Kremlin.

1998, when I first visited in the German editor's office, the situation changed cardinal. Now in the "Voice of Russia" renamed foreign radio went through a serious identity crisis.


One phone per floor for Long distance

In the summer I had found this one in a Moscow supermarket a West German newspaper, the first issue of "Moscow German newspaper in which I immediately applied as a freelancer.

"Do you want to work additional hours may be the way to radio," my editor Mikhail Podwigin asked during the interview. Podwigins wife Valentina was the head of the German program "Voice of Russia" and a few days later I entered the house on Ulitsa Pyatnitskaya radio, then as now, guarded by policemen with Kalschnikow. Even the entrance makes a lasting impression. And then the view from the windows of the German broadcasting service: From the desks could look directly at the Kremlin towers.


Kremlin view from the editor window

lasted seven hours daily German-language program in Moscow. To fill this air time, has become a daily challenge for the editors. There was a lack of translators in technology, money, virtually everything. Therefore, the editorial was happy about any kind of support.

About the meaning of the items are left at that time namely the spirits. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the communist era propaganda abroad was suddenly superfluous. The state broadcaster was hardly Grants, the best journalists left the station and made the many new radio and television career. The new director tried to resolve the financial straits in which he first rented the house floor by floor to other radio stations or corporate offices.

false prophets Moscow wavelength

addition, the former voice of the global communism now their frequencies for individual transmission blocks Doubtful mission services. The German program has been around several times a day interrupted for a few minutes of commercials of dubious revelation movement "Universal Life". Then allowed the self-proclaimed prophetess Gabriele Wittek their illuminations scream into the ether.

empire was foreign radio and this does not. For all European broadcasting services, there was 1998 a single phone could be out of the trunk call. Because of the cost of each call was conducted meticulously book. The broadcasts were recorded on old tape reel in advance that had yet been made by the VEB Wolfen, permanently erased and recorded again and again been torn down at inappropriate moments. The worst was probably that the transmission signals from Moscow for cost reasons, were not as strong as ever. This enabled the program in Berlin on medium wave will still receive a good quality. heard in Switzerland Russia interested in the Moscow wavelength often just noise.

The remaining employees of the German editorial work for a pittance and were often kept only because of their generally excellent language skills above water where they casually translation or interpretation services accepted.

miserable Accordingly, the work ethic was of many editors. They did their duty with little trouble trying to stand out as little as possible, and otherwise devoted to the more pleasant things in life. The liked the quality of the items may not necessarily be beneficial, but it also brought ideal prospects for an internship with them.

The intern sent to Chancellor

expected to because nobody is the proverbial coffee. From day one I was in the middle of the action. Just a few days after my debut at the "Voice of Russia" is no longer heruntergedonnert I edited the translations of their Russian colleagues had typewriters in the chord, but was allowed to write my own posts. A few weeks later, I was (still to be totally inexperienced intern) already in the Kempinski Hotel in the background discussion with Chancellor Schroeder.

Officially, I was still a student at the Moscow State University, but the faculty I visited now only if it had to be sure. Mostly I was now from morning to night at the radio station, and looking back, my year and a half appear in the "Voice of Russia" so eventful, as it would have been five.

Fotos De Mulheres Peladas

The Old Believers from Augsburg

Moscow (February 2004). We fell immediately, as we crowded the cathedral on the eastern outskirts of Moscow entered. Daniil and I were the only two adult men with flowing beard. Already lasted for five hours of service, with the celebrated Russian Old Believers, the election of their new metropolitan. We had mixed in with the community and felt immediately that the other men are somewhat surprised at her.

No other Christian community cling so rigidly to all the ancient rites of the meticulously as the Russian Orthodox Old Believers Church. In the 17th Century it had split off after the church reform of the Patriarch Nikon of the Russian state church. That the sign of the cross should be beaten with three fingers instead of two that were played in the liturgy Hallelujahs three instead of two - these and other changes appeared to the Old Believers as a devil. They fled to Siberia were, to death, but she did not give up their ancient rituals. The Russian Old Believers

church undoubtedly had an enormous percentage of colorful characters. But one was even Altläubigen ratios curious thing that the religious side dish the Moscow newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta necessarily result in an interview with him was Michael Herzog, the first foreigner who has been in the history of each assigned by the Old Believers, an entire diocese - as "Bishop Ambrose of Augsburg, Germany and the Baltic countries" . As Ambrose is not good enough Russian language, the editors had asked me for help. I should lead the interview in German.


Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox,

Duke had a quite remarkable religious quest behind him. Born a Protestant, he was first appointed to the Catholic Church. Later, he was orthodox. The Greek Altkalendariern, a breakaway from the Greek Orthodox Church, he was even ordained a bishop. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the true Christian church has been preserved only in the Russian Old Believers, converted a second time and was soon again bishop.

Daniil of the newspaper office had arranged our meeting for 12 clock, but also by 13 clock of the thanksgiving service is still going on. There was a reason for it all: The election of the new Metropolitan, the Old Believers previously barely escaped a further schism. But even after the end of the Mass, the German bishop was running past us, we paid tribute to not look and blessed instead rather the faithful who gathered around him.

The "Nezavisimaya Gazeta had warned me that I had something to spend more time if I wanted to focus on the Old Believers. The members of this church have generally a time understanding that, of which the "ordinary" Russians differed somewhat. That was no exaggeration. We had hardly Duke finally put aside, was an employee of the church administration, declared that the Metropolitan would speak to the bishop, whereupon the German got up and disappeared.

praises of the new Church leader

We represented a while freezing the feet on the snow-covered cemetery, invited to the Old Believers are friendly to their banquet, they honor the newly elected Metropolitan Andrian to line up. At long tables covered were all members of the council. On the tables were salads, pickled vegetables, potatoes, meat and vodka. Every minute, another bearded man stood up and agreed with a deep bass voice to a song of praise to Andrian. All other arose from the benches and then wanted their new leader, "many, many years" of beneficial activity. In the ballroom there was a strange atmosphere, however, was sheer Lobsängen to the food to think any more. The banquet attracted more and more in length.

It was already dark when we finally after nearly five hours were able to put together in the guesthouse of the German church with the bishop. We should wait in a monastic cell to him in which he was to come for the time of the council. The staff of the church administration had previously instructed us to appeal to the bishop, "Your Eminence." Moreover, they said, Ambrose had really no desire to be interviewed. We it is best to ask questions about his favorite topics, such as about his personal relationship with the archpriest Avvakum, suggested the church people. Maybe he would respond.

No Time for contacts with other churches

Duke, a tall man of fifty, wore a long gray beard, round glasses and a self-designed models for medieval Bishop's Cloak. The bishop did not want to talk about the holy founder of Altgläubigenkirche, nor about his own German community. With difficulty we managed to figure out even some words from the born in Austria church hierarchs.

"On the number of members of the Old Believers say rarely or never," he oracular. Probably it was too embarrassing, the numbers - a few dozen souls in all of Germany - to . Call give contacts with other churches is not it, but he also had "no time", let it be known Ambrose. The fact that the Old Believers were not at all to find, there was neither a phonebook entry with a website, did not bother him. "Who seeks us find ourselves too," was his motto.

relief I was relieved when the "interview" was finally finished. Rarely have I wondered then so much, with whom I had spoken properly. With the representative of an ancient church or with their own cartoon?

The interview was published on 3 March 2004 in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Places To Get Waxed In Richmond Va

Victory Day - My friend the enemy

Moscow (May 2005). "Why are the German Soldiers then actually moved only to Ikea? "My daughter once asked, as we passed the massive anti-tank obstacles that mark the extreme front line in Moscow from December 1941. With five it was her just before the 9th May visibly uncomfortable, somehow to belong to those who attacked Russia at that time.



later than mid-April can not escape a German in Russia's history. The past is omnipresent. Before every ninth May, the day of victory over Nazi Germany, send the TV channels repetitions of all Soviet war films that have been long since become classics. In kindergartens and preschools Boys and girls paint the heroic deeds of their great-grandfathers of the Great Patriotic War in ink on.


A glass on the veterans

Every May walked the old men and women with their dress uniforms, the Moscow boulevards, and despite the traffic noise was then everywhere the gentle strumming of the heroic badge heard. The reforms pushed into economic misery, it was for the World War II veterans still at least this one day a year where they could hear the acceptance speeches of the big bosses ingratiating - but where they also young girls on the street completely honest red Carnations donated.

The Red Square, with its martial military parade was on this day always hermetically shielded by ordinary citizens. Away from the public spectacle, however, had the Russian Victory Day over Germany at the same time always friendly pages.

also in the German editor of Moscow Radio, it was a tradition, before 9 unpack May together back a few tables that had brought drinks, cakes and salads and to the health of Alexander Scholkwer to launch. The author of the daily state-supporting comments for the news broadcast was as a young man himself marched to Berlin, his war medals proudly wore on his lapel. He was the last of the veterans who have worked in the newsroom. And the Germans celebrated in the newsroom with naturally.

"You were not even proper winter boots"

somehow to belong to the other side, it was still a strange feeling. Only law in a country where some thirty million people had lost their lives in the most murderous of all previous wars. Yuri Sergeyevich spoke frequently about the war, when he came to pick up his rent and then we still sat with a cup of tea in the small kitchen of my first Moscow apartment. He had seen the start of the war as a sailor in the Kronstadt naval base on the Baltic Sea and survived the Leningrad blockade. Had the bodies of frozen in the cold hallways are seen, in which all the neighbors were far too weak to bury the dead still.

When Yuri told of the Wehrmacht soldiers, he did not say "the Germans", and certainly not "the fascists". No, he said "her". "I have over seen with binoculars from the front on your side," he told with his charming voice and I poured more tea. "Why should I hate you? You had not even yet sensible winter boots. "The war years did not leave him bitter. Yuri was not only a winner of the Great Patriotic War, he had also won his own personal victory against the madness of this war.

who traveled as a German, European countries, which Hitler had once felt attacked, even after more than six decades in many places, the aversion to all things German. Not so in Russia. Quite the contrary. Perhaps nowhere to fly a German to devote as much sympathy. Goethe, Heinrich Heine, the great composers, the order, not last. Often we were in our Moscow years looking for a home - and every house we visited, we would have to rent immediately. This was the German bonus in a country where the head of state his children to the German Embassy School was sent. Positive racism on Russian Art

And the mass killings? The exiled towns, villages wiped the eye? In few places was as a German but a hard time, there was the past so cruel that they even sixty years later one seemed to push away the still air. In Volgograd about. The city, which has risen on the ruins of Stalingrad from nothing. For "Arte" We shot in summer 2001, a documentary filmed in the city, on the Mamaev Hill, the Motherland statue and a wedding party.

some point I said to our director, it was time that he expresses a toast to the bride and groom. Matt had come up with the idea yet, but without thinking twice, he said exactly the right words that could be said in this situation. "In Germany, most people knew only as long as your city the scene of a terrible battle. A place of war, destruction and death, "he began his little speech, and the celebrants looked up at him. In reality everything is different. Volgograd want is a place dear to the young people marry, have children and have many, many future plans. That's wonderful. ! On the couple "Some people at the table clapped their hands and the bride's father said solemnly:" Until you were just German journalists, from now on since it our guests. Provides finally your camera away and party with. "

An SS colonel in the service of Moscow

From Karsten Packeiser, Moscow. "A real-Aryans. Nordic, determined character. "Cadres Act of SS colonel Otto von Max Stirlitz is impeccable. That in fact Stirlitz Maxim Isayev and is serving as the Kremlin's first inkling of the Nazi leaders yet. No other Soviet television series has become nearly as popular as the twelve-part series "17 Moments of Spring," which tells the adventures of the agent Stirlitz and was broadcast 30 years ago for the first time.

At the first performance In 1973, the Moscow streets were deserted. Meanwhile, the Russian television stations any pretext, to repeat the cult series, it was another anniversary of the victory in the Second World War, or a milestone birthday of the main characters. The television producers can be assured that turn millions of people between Kaliningrad and Vladivostok.

The plot of the series is based partly on historical events, a novel by Julian Semyonov it served as a template. During the "Third Reich" in the spring of 1945 is already on its last legs, Isayev met alias Stirlitz a delicate task. It is designed to prevent Nazi Germany agrees with the Western Allies for a separate peace and various Nazi leaders play sent off against each other.

The "17 Moments of Spring" are one of the few foreign film productions that tell about the war, the Germans do not represent but not as anonymous enemies and the Nazi leader as one-dimensional, brutal monster. Tatjana Liosnowa director paints a detailed picture of each character with all its emotional depths. Apart from the East German television Vorwende the time, the series is still never been shown in Germany.

This may be because Stirlitz is just not a Russian James Bond. In the black and white series, there are no wild chases, shootouts and explosions, as them in western movies a must-agent belong. Although Colonel Isayev had to leave his wife years ago in the Soviet Union, he does not even have a mistress.

Long portentous dialogue of the protagonists and again close-ups of the silent heroes determine all the consequences, which reduces the voltage means. Even today, the Russians increased again each time the breath at that point, drew as Gestapo chief Mueller nachruft suspicion and the Soviet agents the legendary words: "And you, Stirlitz, I ask you to stay."

The Soviet TV spy has long since become a genuine folk hero. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, himself once worked for the KGB on the invisible front, the actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov Stirlitz presented to the 75th Birthday one of the highest Russian medal for services to his country.

the saying has been invented hundreds of jokes about the agent. "The situation in Berlin had become so bad that even in the Reich Chancellery, long queues formed when meat was sold there," says one. "Everyone waited patiently, but Stirlitz jostling each time roughly by the snake over to the front, which upset the Gestapo scary. You did not know that heroes of the Soviet Union always operated out of turn. "
Originally
published by Russia News .