The Onega True Story (Look Around)

The Onega True Story (Look Around) , 1987 (29:59)

Annotation: About the life of a northern Russian village and the destiny of people.

Film description: The film tells about the life of the northern Russian countryside and people's fates. The film was filming the following: an interview with a former collective farm chairman Agapitova (sinhr.), landscapes of the Arkhangelsk region, the abandoned village of types of houses, village life - laundry in the river, fired up the furnace, the stories of the villagers about their lives (sinhr.), classes children in the class of rural primary schools, the type of rural churches, construction of a bridge over the river, life residents Kargopol'skogo homes for landing passengers on the ship, the ship sails on the River. The film features newsreels the 20's - 50's: "The explosion of the church, the work of the rural population in the lumber camps, rafting on the river, view from a village on the banks of the river, harvesting hay farmers, the type of people floating on a barge, building a house, writing population in the state loan, meeting of the board of one of the farms, the type of collective herd passing through the village street, the type of hog farms, loading cans of milk and cows on a barge.

Source description 1: A boy is entering the river on his bicycle.
A duck is swimming.
An old woman is saying goodbye to her grandchild on the pier, is walking along the pier.
A steamer is sailing away from the pier.
A dog is running along the shore.
The old woman is covering her face in her hands.
Boys are swinging the boat.
Photo: a peasant with a sieve; peasants can be seen in the window and next to the house; countrymen on the cart. The collective farm chairman Agapitov is telling about the creation of communes [type of collective farms].
Photo: gathering in the village.
Newsreel of the 30-40-s:
Soldiers are laying dynamite; blowing up the Bell Tower.

Photo: children are bathing, a peasant with a horse; peasants on the pier, at threshing, at the bonfire; people at timber cutting; floating; village women; a woman at the coffin.
Newsreel of the 30-40-s:
Peasants at timber cutting and floating.
An old village on the river bank.

Agapitov is speaking about the villagers’ hard life in the 30-40-s.
Panorama of old women listening in the log hut.
Newsreel of 1941:
Seeing-off to the front: a man is playing the accordion, another man is dancing.

Panorama of a memorial plaque with the last names of the collective farm workers, who perished during the Great Patriotic War [Soviet People’s participation in World War II in 1941-1945).
A woman is washing linen the river.
Panorama of the river landscapes in the evening.
A village house at sunset.
Panorama of an old man dancing “tsiganochka” (Russian folk dance), singing; the old woman Ulyana Nikolaevna is playing a melody with spoons, singing, panorama of old women watching.
Ulyana Nikolaevna is speaking.
Comrade Agapitov is next to the house.
Newsreel of the 40-s:
Men are getting closer to the barge.
Women are mowing the grass.
Hay is being loaded on the barge.
The Kremlin.
Farm workers.
A boy and women are tossing the hay.
Children are washing horses.
Haystacks on the bank.
People are on board the barge, those seeing them off are waving hands.
State premium bonds are being raffled (under a huge portrait of Joseph Stalin).
Panorama of a peasant log hut interior.
A woman is leaving the hut (summer).
Ulyana Nikolaevna and other old women are talking about peasants’ hard life in the 40-s.
Photo: Meeting of the collective farm administration. Men with papers, Comrade Agapitov in the field.

Source description 2: Panorama of plowed ground.
Agapitov is speaking.
Panorama of Agapitov’s log hut interior.
The head of the Village Executive Committee Noginov is telling about the village of the 50-s in the office.
Newsreel of the 50-s:
Hay-carts are going.
Construction of standard houses in the village.
Peasants’ faces.
Cows are being driven through the village.
Pig farm, pigs are running.
Moving from “unpromising” villages; milk-cans are being loaded to the barge, cows are being transported.

Shepherd.
Panorama of a field.
Panorama of Ulyana Nikolaevna and other women talking.
Panorama of a class with 3 children in the village primary school; the teacher is dictating, children are writing.
Autumn landscape: field, birch tree.
Abandoned village, a church can be seen.
Panorama of broken houses with windows boarded up.
Panorama of and old woman and children walking through the field.
Agapitov in the field.
The collective farm chairman Baykshis is speaking in the office.
Panorama of a river in winter at sunset.
Panorama of workers constructing a bridge, it is snowing.
A house on the river bank.
Panorama of an old woman walking with a bag along the village.

Source description 3: Panorama of girls carrying firewood: washing dishes, fiiring the oven (hostel of the dairy-farm workers).
Larisa is in the room speaking about the problems of the young people in the village. Panorama of the boiling kettle.
A young man in the street of the village.
Panorama of a window, panorama of a tape-recorder.
Fire in the oven.
A girl is walking along the village street.
A calf is being pulled to the car.
Field, road, a car is going by.
Baykshis is speaking.
Men are going up the ladder of the steamer.
Houses on the bank of the river.
Panorama of an old man on the pier in the town of Kargopol: standing, walking, crying, speaking.
Hands on the rail.
Panorama of the home for invalids and aged people: old women are at the table in the street. Hairdresser’s parlor in the house.
Panorama of old women watching TV.
A man is going along the corridor.
Panorama of women washing dishes.
Old women are seeing the steamer off, people on the pier.
Old women are speaking.
Interior of a peasant log hut.
Panorama of an autumn landscape – forest, field.
Panorama of a drained swamp.
Agapitov is in the room, speaking.
Mountain-ash behind the window.
Panorama of Agapitov entering the house.
Photos on the wall.
An old man is singing a chastooshka (Russian folk comic couplet).
Ulyana Nikolaevna.
A decorated boat is sailing, faces of peasants.
Children are swinging.
Women wearing shawls are walking.

Directors: Skabard T.

Operators: Voroncov S.

Script writers: Aleksandrova T.