Aleksei Kopashov

The story of the Podolsk cadets’ heroic stand outside Moscow in October 1941. Cadets were sent to the Ilyinsky line, fighting alongside units from the Soviet 43rd Army to hold back the German advance until reinforcements arrived. Hopelessly outnumbered, young men laid down their lives in a battle lasting almost two weeks to obstruct the far superior German forces advancing towards Moscow. Around 3,500 cadets and their commanding officers were sent to hold up the last line of defense outside Moscow. Most of them remained there for eternity.

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June 21, 1941, Brest fortress. Lieutenant Andrey Kizhevatov, Major Pyotr Gavrilov and Commissar Yefim Fomin were engaged in daily business. There was also a boy trumpeter Sasha Akimov from the regimental orchestra, who secretly smoked and selflessly loved the girl Vera. None of the servicemen knew that the next morning they would become the commanders of the last three hotbeds of resistance, and the boy was the only link between them in the stone cauldron of the first object of attack by Nazi troops in the USSR, the Brest Fortress.

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The film covers the heroic defence of the Brest Fortress, which was attacked during the first strike of German invaders on June 22 1941. The story describes the events of the first days of the defence, including the three main resistance zones, headed by the regiment commander, Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov, the commissar Efim Moiseevich Fomin and the head of the 9th frontier outpost, Andrey Mitrofanovich Kizhevatov. Many years later veteran Alexander Akimov again recalls the memories of the time, when he, then a 15 year old Sasha Akimov was deeply in love with the beautiful Anya and suddenly found himself in the middle of the bloody events of war.

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