Pasha Talakin, a Russian man who worked as an events coordinator at a local school, engaged in undercover filming of the practices being used to indoctrinate children. He had the tools (video camera and recorder), the access (as a school employee), and a trained teacher’s perception of the moral formation of young people. The script consists mostly of his commentary on what he filmed.
Pasha is very likable and unassuming. Locally born and educated at the same school where he filmed, he declares his strong love for the town of Karabash, which is situated near the Urals beside a copper mine. It has the evil reputation of being one of the most polluted places on earth, he admits. The copper mining has polluted the soil, the water and the air, resulting in a heavy disease burden within the population and early deaths at age 38. But this is not the theme of the film.
Russian militarism enters the school
Instead, what he shows is how Russian militarism was forced into the school, in footage taken from 2022, when Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, up until the summer of 2024, when Pasha had to cross the border into exile. I loved the scenes of the school children, looking so trim and cheerful: scenes that are now no longer permitted in the UK because of social media abuse, so we have to make do with films of children’s socks and shoes. In the Russian school scenes, there was not as much diversity of complexion as one would see in a school in south-east England, but there were a few children from the populations further east.
Formal ceremonies and quiet conversations
Some of the scenes were taken at formal occasions, such as Remembrance Day or a graduation ceremony, with the impression that Russian culture normally has rather more ceremonial patriotism than would be expected or staged in British schools these days. Maybe football harnesses British local loyalties instead. The Russian formal ceremonies became more and more militaristic, with marching and raising of the flag, and large formations of youth in uniform, resembling 1930s fascism, which is bizarre, as Putin claims to be opposing ‘Nazis’.
But there were also scenes taken in Pasha’s office, which he used as a social space for the teenagers who were working with him to come and go. In one-to-one conversations, some of them would confide in him about their families. One girl, in particular, was worrying about her brother, who had been conscripted into the Russian army and sent to Ukraine. When another young school leaver was conscripted, Pasha filmed his rowdy farewell party, with an empathetic feel for teenage male rituals like haircuts.
A government-made lesson on patriotism
When the order came from the government that all schools had to teach prescribed lessons on Russian patriotism and Ukraine, he had to film these lessons in each classroom and send the footage to the government office to prove that the school was complying. In one class, the teacher who was the main government agent at the school is shown giving one of these lessons, with added fervour, in front of bored or bewildered students.
This teacher was later awarded the district prize as the teacher best loved by students and received a free new apartment. Pasha duly interviewed him about his love of history and found out about his heroes from the past: all of them were the most notorious killers of the Stalin era, those who had tortured and imprisoned on a large scale.
Becoming a subversive film-maker
Pasha is clearly well read. At one point, he swings the camera onto his shelves at home, containing 470 well-sorted books. His mother is a librarian. But although he brings her flowers on her birthday, it is clear she does not approve of his dissident views. When she does speak out, it is to say that war can’t be avoided. Young men will always like taking up guns and shooting one another!
But Pasha was determined to show his disapproval of what Putin’s government is doing. First, he tried to resign from his school employment. However, he suddenly received a surprising email from a foreigner, David Borenstein, a film-maker who had spotted a message Pasha had put on Instagram about making films in a Russian school.
This film-maker proposed the collaborative project of making a film for international audiences about what was going on in Russian schools, with Pasha as the film-maker and director. So, Pasha retracted his resignation and continued filming, but now with a subversive purpose.
In exile, but longing to return
But he lived in a small town (population 13,000), and as a local, he was known by everybody. He had done various things that showed his opposition to Putin’s government, such as displaying in his office the truncated Russian flag (blue without the red) and painting a large X on school windows, which he says is a known symbol of being against the war.
A police car showed up one evening outside his flat. He had hidden his hard drives, but he knew he had to make plans to leave Russia. Now he lives in exile in Berlin, but he yearns to return to his homeland. Even though Karabash is a notoriously polluted town, he loves it. He wants to return once there is a change from Putin’s rule.
Young dead soldiers
This film by Mr Nobody shows with horrible clarity how Putin’s government is spoiling the lives and corrupting the minds of young people all over Russia so that they can more easily be recruited into the military to fight an unnecessary war of aggression. Increasingly, there are burial ceremonies for the young dead soldiers in the Karabash cemetery. The brother of the teenage girl who had confided her worries about him to Pasha tried to defect from the army, but he was sent back to the Ukrainian front and was killed there.
This film is a superb chronicle from a remote part of Russia. Unsurprisingly, it won an Oscar.
Mr Nobody against Putin is available in the Storyville section of BBC iPlayer.
