Seventeen Moments of Spring aka Semnadtsat Mgnoveniy Vesny
Watercooler TV from a land without watercoolers, Seventeen Moments of Spring lays claim to being the most successful Soviet TV show ever made. It was commissioned at the command of KGB boss Yuri Andropov. USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev loved it. But the public did too – streets emptied when it was first aired, stripped over 12 nights in 1973. It seems that no matter what Soviet citizens thought of the regime, everyone agreed that the war against the Nazis had been a just one. Sticking it to the Americans was no bad thing either. It also happened to be compelling TV. And it still is if you turn off the bit of your brain … Read more