If Only I Knew

If Only I Knew , 1991 (28:33)

Annotation: About the economic crisis of the period of perestroika (is the Russian term (now used in English) for the economic reforms introduced in June 1985 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev) in the opinion of specialists and common citizens.

Source description 1: The “Tishinsky” Market.
Mass retail.
A stuff junkyard. Disorder.
A woman carrying a heavy bag is passing by.
A monument to Karl Marx.
Bypassers.
A monument to Lenin.
A badgeman in the street is begging and crossing himself.
Porno literature on the counter
Bypassers in Gorky Street.
A waxwork of Gorbachev.
Gorbachev at the tribune.
Pavlov at the tribune
A panorama of the queue for vodka, the house
A panorama of the queue.
A queue to the Creamery Shop.
The shop-sign in the show-window saying “Closed”.
A panorama of the empty counters.
A panorama of a city street.
The title “Grigory”.
A price label (Commercial Shop).
Visitors in the shop
Goods. Chinaware
A panorama from the shop-assistant to the shop-window with household appliances and devices.
The peasant woman Vera Alekseevna’s house.
The room interior.
An old woman is sitting (a panorama of her hands).
A lamp.
The old woman’s interview.
A panorama from the cat to the old woman working in the kitchen-garden.
A man’s interview.
The old woman is sitting on the porch; entering the village shop.
A panorama from the old woman’s face to her hands.
She is recounting the money.
She is buying some bread.
She is going out of the store
A clock.

Source description 2: A store's fish department.
Goods on the counter.
A store's meat department. .
Goods on the counter, a tray with meat.
Price labels.
Customers are speaking.
A Moscow street, bypassers.
A swing in the children’s playground.
A panorama of a young man playing the percussion instrument.
Coins.
People are walking along the public garden.
A girl is passing-by with a child
Newsreel of the 60-s:
Khrushchev is passing along the cornfield.
Khrushchev at the tribune.
The Presidium is applauding:
Newsreel of the 70-s:
An inscription ”BAM” [“Baikal-Amur Mainline”].
Young people are passing by.
A train is leaaving.
An excavator’s scoop.
Working .
People in the field are harvesting grain.
Grain
Milk is pouring.
A bottle of milk
Steel is flowing.
A steelmaker at work.
A ship.
A plane.
BELAZ [Byelorussian Automobile Plant] truck.
The One Millionth Tractor of BELAZ .
Lenin
A motorcade of tractors is driving by.
An inscription: “Dobro Pozhalovat’”, “Druzhba” [“Welcome”, “Friendship”].
Two men (Cuban and Russian) at work.
High-voltage power-line.
Rails tracking.
A construction site.
Unloading works in the port.
Spanish children in the ship.

Source description 3: Newsreel of the 1930-s.
Women are carrying Spanish children in their arms.
Newsreel of 1945:
Berlin.
A point-policeman.
Dispensation of bread to civilians.
A bread queue.
Some soup is being poured.

Dispensation of food to the poor citizens of Leningrad.
A man with a plate.
An old woman is sorting out parcels with the humanitarian supplies.
Doves, a panorama of a German man dispensing food.
A panorama of Institute employees working on the computer.
The computer screen.
Woman’s hands
An old woman is peeling potatoes, sitting on the bench, in the church.
A church.
The iconostasis.

Directors: Shvetsov S.

Operators: Lovkov V.

Script writers: Plyusnina S.