Russia's Classrooms Face Putin’s Propaganda Machine

[music] Welcome back. I'm Max Bergman, director of the Stewart Center and Europe, Russia Urasia program at CSIS. >> And I'm Maria Niggoava, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia. >> And you're listening to Russian Roulette, a podcast discussing all things Russia and Eurasia from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Hello and welcome to the very first episode of Russian Roulette in Russian. My name is Maria Niggoaya and today our guest is Pavl Talankin, the protagonist, cinematographer and co-director of the documentary film Mr. Nobody versus Putin, winner of the 2026 Oscar and BFTA for best documentary and also Peabody and Sundance. >> Oh, great. Thank you for adding that. The film tells the story of Pavl's work as a teacher, organizer, and school videographer in the town of Karabash after the start of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine when Russian schools became part of a massive state campaign of so-called patriotic education in quotes. Thanks to unique documentary footage, the film shows how state propaganda gradually penetrates the daily life of Russian schools and affects children and teachers. We are very glad that Pavl joined us today to talk about the film, his personal story, and how the Russian school propaganda system works today. Hello again, Pavl. Thank you. >> Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me. Hello to all the listeners of Russian roulette. >> Thank you. To start, please tell us how it all began, your project, how the idea was born, and how the work on the film went. Uh it all started uh a few weeks after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Uh it was March 14th, the 14th or 15th. I already I need to check the orders. Look, orders began to arrive at schools about how teachers should cover the war, what teachers should say to children. Then readymade uh programs, readymade lessons, lesson plans, uh discussion outlines started coming. If there's a TV hanging somewhere in the school, a presentation would arrive that they had to show to these school kids. Presentations for classes arrived. Fully written methodological recommendations, which songs, which videos teachers should turn on to talk to children about the war >> in absolutely all grades or some specific grades? Uh it was it was uh an order in which uh on the last page links were attached and you download from there. Well, teachers download the methodological uh material from there and conduct these classes with with the students. >> Well, let's say I'm a math teacher. Me too. >> Yes. Yes. There was even a case where an elementary school teacher adapted the material uh sent from the ministry uh saying that young children wouldn't understand. They need the flow of the lesson is of course structured correctly but for young children it's too it's very difficult. So she adapted it that is completely reworked it if you can say so >> the material from the min from the ministry and taught it you know in her own way but she taught it that's the scariest part. >> Yes absolutely and of course the feature of the film which is particularly unique is the use of real footage of school lessons and events. Uh as I understand as you explained the school schools were required to regularly upload video recordings to a state portal confirming that they had completed this patriotic education. >> It was it was like uh a hard drive where we saw all the folders of educational organizations in Karabash and each school kept dropping dropping dropping files in there. But uh I didn't go into the other folders but I think there was a kishim folder and a mias folder meaning other cities yes of the Chileinsk region and everyone everyone sent this data. I once got a call from uh the vice principal and she said pavich congratulations. Now you are also required to film all of this because we are required to report to the ministry that all these lessons are taking place that teachers are meeting all these new standards. This reminds me a bit of uh the Stalinist repression machine where due to its bureaucratic nature they also kept records of all the horrors they committed. Thanks to this, modern historians can trace uh what was happening back then. And in essence, here the state with its own hands is actually documenting all its own, you could say crimes. Yes. And what's most interesting is that it exists somewhere. You see somewhere there is this all this material, all these crimes they are committing. Uh it's all stored and um and this might be needed sooner or later. I believe that we will need it >> undoubtedly when let's hope we will have the opportunity to expose all these crimes of the regime. Well, including thanks to your work uh to talk about it. Since you uh filmed the materials, you could observe the reaction of the children whom you obviously sympathize with very much. This is very clearly traced in the film. How do you think it affected them? all this propaganda load, how fast, how effective and how did the students react to it in general? >> Very fast, very effective. But um different different levels have uh different immunity to this. Let's put it that way. Let's call it that. the older kids they uh when we got this tradition of bringing in the flag you know listening to the anthem uh so that the flag must stand uh over the school they say well well the flag well it's like it's right like it's everywhere in every country I mean wherever you go there's a flag and they say but to be honest we can't look at it Because with this flag, tanks drive through a neighboring state and destroy schools just like ours. >> That's how some of the kids reacted. >> That's how some of the kids reacted. Uh meaning they kind of understand why all of a sudden this happened, why all of a sudden the anthem, all these lessons, all these flags appeared in school. And the younger kids, they uh they come in and already take it for granted. And in the Russian education system, it's structured in such a way that from first to fourth grade, you have one teacher. They teach you to read, multiply, subtract, and divide and basically lay down this foundation. >> I still remember I had >> Yes. Uh and why one teacher? Because that's the age when the teacher's authority is established. I remember when I got a job at a school. I said, "Let's do this holiday for the kids and this one. Let's do some kind of song or dance contest." They said, "Sh, calm down. We can't spread our authority thinly over other uh teachers." And that's actually a stage of age when everything the teacher says is absorbed by the student like a sponge and is considered the absolute truth. Even if uh a child comes home and they're told and and he Yeah. Let me put it this way. Even if a child comes home and starts doing some ordinary everyday thing differently, the parents will say, "What are you doing? you've always done it differently. And he'll say, "No, the teacher said it has to be done this way." >> And this this this is exactly a psychological and well age related phenomenon. >> So in other words, older students were less susceptible. >> 10th, 11th grade, they they already uh they already figured out what was what. They understood why all this started happening. But the little kids they of course they take it all for granted as if they don't know any other school because 10th grade 11th they didn't have this in first grade they didn't have this in fifth grade and then suddenly in 10th 11th grade something like this appeared they can compare but the little kids they can't compare and they came to it as a given if I'm not mistaken there are studies in Germany showing that Germans who were socialized in such nazi educational institutions as children still retained many of those attitudes as adults. So that's the very generation that carried this this effect and until they actually leave the stage yes some influence remains. Do you think so? the influence remains that too. But uh there are there are these frameworks that are already all written down. And we in psychology I remember when I was studying they told us that an older person he might not remember what happened to him yesterday, what happened to him the day before yesterday, but he will tell you exactly what happened to him at school. how someone hit him on the head with a briefcase or someone gave him some flowers or how the teacher wrote say some word incorrectly say on the blackboard. That is materials from childhood in older age like 70 plus. they uh they resurface and therefore uh yes there are studies that that that precisely concerned those children who were in the Hitler youth and they said yes yes yes it's a crime but but >> they built the autobonds >> yes yes but also um very childhood is such It's such an age that is always uh that is always re remembered with nostalgia. I know very few people who would say I had a horrible childhood and I don't want to think anything about it. I know very few such people. Everyone else remembers it as something bright, kind, naive. >> Now this will be intertwined with Putin's propaganda for them. >> Yes. Yes. and my uh once I saw uh an interview with Radzinski the historian who said that I don't know exactly if I'm quoting this phrase correctly or not that uh allegedly Stalin once said that after his death garbage would be piled on his grave but the wind of history would blow it away and it seems to me Putin is doing the exact same thing. Now uh after his death they will bring garbage. But when these school children are already um an integral part of society when they run for office and vote then this wind will blow it away just like what is happening now in the Moscow metro. They are installing restoring rather monuments of Stalin where they used to be and all this madness that is going on. There's more to come as they say what lies ahead for us. >> Well, thank you that your work at least allows us to track the stages. Yes. Of the mechanism of this propaganda. And what elements of propaganda do you think of those activities? Yes. Uh special maybe special classes, textbooks, yes. that they offered turn out to be the most the most effective or maybe the role of constant repetition of the same thesis in different forms. What did you feel had an especially strong influence? >> They are all effective. They are all effective. Uh it's impossible to choose just one and say this one is more effective and this one is ineffective. Absolutely all of them are effective. Uh sorry I forgot the name of one professor who watched um this film after the BFTAs and said that this uh and he he he's an educator and he worked in Moscow. Uh and he explained how propaganda works that it first it becomes a routine for absolutely everyone and then it becomes a culture meaning a part of life what you do part of the day uh like on a schedule and then it turns into a cage from which it's already impossible to escape. So to add to his words, in our case, the cage of the past Soviet regime didn't disappear. No work was done on the mistakes. Nobody said, "Guys, you were deceived." And immediately another cage grew right now, this Putinist one, and it's like reinforced concrete. And we will have to we'll have to have conversations with these people who are currently being brainwashed especially with school children and adults. >> Yes, that is a very unfortunately terrifying observation. Lev Gov let me remind you yes the sociologist from Lvada he has a work recurrent totalitarianism. He writes precisely uh about how many Soviet institutions unreformed remained in the postsviet era and reproduced as you said. Yes, Pavo. This totalitarian legacy and now it is being restored among other things. That is it reinforces the effect of what what the society was already predisposed to initially. >> Yeah. And you know there are scenes in the film that that show you could say that people are actually in a cage. For instance, my mom in the film says, "Calm down. It's always been like this. It's always been like this." They don't know any other life. They don't know that it's possible for for things to be different. I mean at my school for example we didn't have that both when I was studying and when I started working. Yeah we didn't have that but they don't know any other way. >> But your mom was also socialized right back in Soviet times. And this is is a prime example of her now seeing it as a norm. >> Yes. Yes. And many teachers who they all come from the Soviet Union, they they all see this as the norm and and that's why it's so easily accepted, why they go along with all these orders so easily. Of course, there are schools that that somehow resist this, but uh the orders come from the ministry and the education system in Russia is such that there's a strict chain of command from top to bottom. Uh and they they either report differently or but they're all obliged to do it, of course. scary uh when you say that young children have clearly become very susceptible to this uncritically buying into these talking points and narratives. Maybe you could give some examples of these propaganda talking points and how you notice that the kids are actually absorbing them. Do they repeat them? For example, what are the indicators that propaganda is actually affecting their perception of the world? >> Yes. here. Sorry, I can't help but bring up uh JK Rowling as an example in uh Harry Potter. These are my fa favorite books and you know adolescence is wonderfully described there >> Harry Potter >> when uh maybe it's symbolic to read it when Voldemort suddenly possesses Harry Potter and this is exactly in adolescence in puberty and the seeds of evil are born in Harry Potter himself and his task is to purge this to squeeze this out of himself. self over the course of like several books. He tries he does this and propaganda to your previous question uh in school in educational organizations is a whole a whole system. A child comes to school uh and they tell him Russia is such a wonderful country. We have gas, oil, forests, seas, lakes, mountains. We have everything. you can live happily here. They just blink and repeat it like a mantra. And when they reach adolescence and that little spark, that thread of evil starts growing in them, they are told. And now everything you heard, they want to take it away from you. They want to enslave you and they want to make you slaves. And of course, their rejection mode kicks in. What? Me? Never. And off they go. And there it goes. And [clears throat] that's how it works. And it works very effectively. >> And here, who wants to take it away? NATO, the West, Ukraine. >> The West. In Russian schools, they don't talk much about the war being with Ukraine. They say it's with the entire West. >> Mhm. >> Yes. >> So the bad West, poor Russia. >> Yes. Poor Russia. Yes. Yes. Yes. So the war, it's interesting that the war is rarely mentioned, right? That's also curious. >> The war is rarely mentioned, but lately I think I'm already like uh removed from the school system. But lately, I think uh this word is appearing more often. >> Mhm. >> Because they started allowing themselves to say it on TV, too. Mhm. So, as the regime apparently becomes convinced, as Pasco put it, that the terrible West dragged Russia into this war that Russia resisted for a long time, trying to limit itself to a special military operation, but now that's over. And as the regime apparently realizes the need for total mobilization, perhaps new waves of mobilization and indoctrination are intensifying and the war is also being normalized. Right. Before that, it was just the SMO like you could ignore it. >> Yes. Yes, we have footage that didn't make it uh didn't make it into the film. It's when these Vagnarites came >> and we have a short interview with them for the school blog. But of course, I didn't publish it anywhere because it's it's just complete nonsense. But the principal said we need to shoot it. Well, okay, I went to shoot it. And so he says um he was saying there that Russia has split part I don't remember exactly what he >> but this is one of those >> yes yes one of the smo guys yes that part part is defending and part is sitting waiting for it all to end he says but if Putin hadn't allowed us this is the key thing for they say if Putin hadn't allowed us then today NATO would be at our doorstep Mhm. >> Right in karabash. >> Yes. That is they sat and waited for when they would be allowed. >> That is >> very interesting. Too bad you didn't include it. >> Uh well, yes, we didn't include it. But if we included everything there, it would be a very long film. Yes, >> a long film. Among my American acquaintances, strangely enough, in your film which they watched, they are especially struck by the story of the history history and geography teacher. I think Pavl Abdul Manov >> he is a history teacher he is a social studies teacher he is a physics teacher and a technology shop class teacher >> he is striking in that he admires basically Stalin's repressions barrier and comes across in the film as a fairly ordinary welladjusted person a respected school teacher not some outcast but among my American friends who live here they were struck that a person who is practically an apologist for the repressions the most terrible monstrous moments of Soviet history is actually working as a teacher. So how do you think how typical is this character for a modern Russian school and how much did his political views affect his daily communication with teachers and students? Well, uh, we had a screening in the Czech Republic, the premiere in the Czech Republic. Many, many people in the profession came, directors, cameramen, screenwriters, a lot of people came. Uh and the Czech director came up to me and said, "You know, if screenwriters brought me your film written on paper, I would have sent them all back to screenwriting school because a person like that just doesn't exist." He says, "I watch your film and I get the feeling that it's some actor, that he's not real, and that you had a team of costume designers working on the film because he says even his clothes are like a checkists, like a real one. >> That's because he hasn't watched Soliv's propaganda shows." >> Yeah. Uh but apparently they don't have time for that. Yeah. Thank God. >> Thank God. >> Right. Uh as for Pavl Abdul Man of himself, uh he's actually uh a good teacher. Uh uh how should I put it? Probably always ready to help because look how many hours he has plus two home room classes, home room. He uh he always comes to the rescue to help. Uh but we have um a big age difference first of all. Secondly, our uh um staff is divided into these little islands. So he and I practically never cross paths. He's not my friend and I don't know all of his interests and views. And when I actually went to film him, that's when I was of course blown away. I my eyes were already rolling back then, of course. And he talks about it so completely calmly, not even not even embarrassed. Uh with admiration I think apparently he he was waiting for when when it would be possible to talk so openly about all of this to list murderers. >> It's also striking that he teaches history. I mean that's exactly you can just imagine what kind of history he teaches the kids. >> Yes. And yet he names everyone who was under Stalin's command. So he puts himself in this. Well look say we're sitting at a table and right now let's say all those people he named appear. So at a table like that at a round table who would he see himself as Stalin or what? I don't know. But actually this this answer of his it it popped such an abscess actually if you look closely listen closely because this we we were talking so uh at one of the anti-war committee events with with a group of people and they said that uh when Lavough was asked did he suspect did he know there would be a war did Putin consult with him and they say Lavrov then uh slipped up let it slip when he answered that Putin's advisers are Katherine Peter the great and I think even the terrible or whoever and this and they said such an amazing thing and like they say just imagine you walk around this Kremlin day in and day out and how this whole atmosphere of history and all of this must weigh on you. They say people go crazy and his circle uh the head of Rosardia Zolotov he actually begged for himself he begged Putin for Stalin's daca they decommissioned it from the museum transferred it to his housing fund. How crazy of an idiot do you have to be? Excuse me. To be like, I want to live in Stalin's DACA. >> This reminds me of a a joke playing Strat Stratavarius's violin is the same for you as shooting Felix. >> Yes. Yes. >> Zerjinski's machine gun. >> Uh, yes. And how much do you think overall like again this reaction of my American acquaintances seems curious to me precisely because he seems like an absolutely normal teacher, right? And you also said bavvel we didn't cross paths and I didn't know about his views. It seems like the everyday life of teachers but you scratched the surface and it turns out that uh a significant part of his like perception of the world comes from an absolutely distorted worldview and understanding of history. How much do you think this can serve as a metaphor for a more substantial part of Russian society right in relation to the west? It seemed to us that uh basically Russia should integrate into the west uh gradually but it >> it was it was integrating it everything was heading towards uh towards gradually sweeping all of this away. I don't know but you know I asked myself a question. I'll steer away from your answer now but I'll definitely come back to it later. I asked myself a question. Uh I think in 2005 or 2007 they said that all political parties must leave schools. Before that there was the Communist Party and the LDPR and all kinds of flags hanging there. If a teacher was like an LDPR fan, he had a flag there and they passed a law for all parties to leave schools. They all left but uh United Russia remained well in the form of magnets like uh all that stuff in general they remained uh mentions of them and then the war started and two weeks later propaganda kicked the door open into all educational organizations even kindergartens and they started started broadcasting through teachers started teachers turned into megaphones. I asked the question why why all of a sudden and here is the conclusion I came to the war started and people uh of my age or around my age plus or minus 10 years uh I'm 35 so we can say yeah 45 and 25 who had first of all some financial safety who had some documents, who could work online remotely. They said, "Okay, everything is clear to us with this state now for sure." They packed their things and lined up at the border. Remember what giant lines there were back then? There were mi, I think, millions of people leaving the country. Of course, this didn't go unnoticed. in the Kremlin. They looked out the window, said, "What age group is leaving? Let's compare." They looked, said, "Oops." And those leaving are precisely the ones who didn't have all of this. >> That is they they figured they had lost a whole generation. >> And so they quickly started making up for lost time >> through indoctrination. Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Yes. And so precisely those groups that were supposed to be this the core right the driver of such a beautiful future they are precisely the target of propaganda today. Um literally a few months ago a Levvada center poll came out asking to name um the most outstanding historical figures. And what's interesting there well first of all they're everyone named Stalinian this is very sad just speaking of the previous point but they're for the first time among youth groups 18 to 24 who were traditionally oppositional this is what you were just talking about Pavl and more um in favor of peace negotiations right meaning they don't support the war they by the way are usually the ones who have to go fight so they have a personal interest in this too that is they traditionally groups more oppositional to the regime suddenly became the group that most often named Putin as one of the greatest historical figures. Well, one can argue for a long time about polls like how much they reflect reality and that's a separate conversation, but this is such a marker of a possibility that indeed that very indoctrination you're talking about has started to work. How much does that seem really possible to you? Right. That is this is a mid 2025 poll. So, the war has already been going on for 3 and a half years, right? >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. uh and are there any other indicators by which one can see that propaganda is indeed starting to have an effect especially on the young >> propaganda is starting uh to have an effect uh I don't I don't remember who uh who who was citing uh the data that uh right now a lot of young kids are going to the front straight out of school they go they sign up and they don't Even many don't even tell their parents about it. Meaning they went signed a contract and came back home. >> So it's not necessarily right. It's far from being just about money. Right. >> Yeah. Finished school and off they went. >> Exactly. I've seen a lot of data showing that there's a covert mobilization going on now specifically targeting these groups. Threats of say expulsion from university. >> They No, they actually expel them. No, no, it's not a threat of expulsion. They do expel them. So I mean there is this fact that they are under intense pressure right but you think there's also a separate purely ideological aspect. >> Yes. Yes. A purely ideological aspect is present too. >> Uhhuh. >> But also well because you come home and on TV uh it's all negative about the war uh killing and looting. On the radio it's killing and looting. Your Tik Tok is completely flooded with this. The propaganda through Tik Tok is colossal. >> Absolutely colossal. And you go to school and the teachers tell you the exact same thing. >> So from all sides >> from all sides. And of course a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth. And they they just live in this in this kind of truth. >> Especially when any alternative right viewpoints have been destroyed. They don't exist. If TV, radio and then schools were saying that Russia is being eaten by hogweed and we all must go just everyone. Everyone stand up and go destroy all the hogweed in Russia. Everyone would go destroy hogweed. >> Well, not everyone as we can see. Yeah, some just don't care. For many it's significant, but a certain part would go. But speaking of of the war, you see this is what what becomes a part of it. When the war started, I was so stunned by one of my colleagues. She she's older. She's 60 and she kept saying, "Oh god, oh god, if only there's no war." And remember there was that stage when the military was standing on the border and everyone thought it was some kind of masquerade, a show. They'll stand there for a bit, it's just some political game, then they'll turn around and leave, right? And she would say, "A bad peace is better than war. Better a bad peace, but peace." And suddenly the war starts and she says well well okay fine then like so enthusiastically already a nightmare. >> Did you try to discuss it with her? Why such a shift? >> No I didn't try. I we were also preparing some concert with cultural workers in Karabash and I came to them and they were saying what do you think? How do you feel about this? I state my point of view. They say, "Oh, this would have started sooner or later anyway." I say, "Wait, wait. With your support, soon your husbands will start coming back in coffins and then you'll understand what this is." And they got very offended by me for that phrase for me saying, "What are you talking about? Don't say things like that to me." And in the end, that's exactly how it's turning out. Now, >> that is exactly what my next question is about. How is it now? Right. Do you keep in touch perhaps with any of your acquaintances who stayed and how have their views changed from your perspective over this time? Maybe indeed when the coffins as we know are coming, Russia is losing a huge number at the front. This is one of the most catastrophic wars in principle in Europe. And for Russia since World War II in terms of casualties, it is absolutely number two. And maybe it will even surpass it because it's not going to end, right? Our colleagues from CSS recently published a very interesting study on this which shows the monstrosity of these figures. So how much does this affect the perception of the war by people you know? >> I are you talking specifically about the cargo 200 arriving or what? >> Well just this whole experience. Yes. How much do you think it's having an impact? >> Look my birthday was on March 11th. I get a call right before the Oscars. My students call me to wish me a happy birthday and ask how are you doing? How are you feeling? And I can hear that there's some kind of double meaning in the tone of these questions. I say tell me what happened. They say Nikita is gone. He's coming home as cargo 200. And Nikita is 19 years old. He's fresh out of school. >> This is one of the students. >> One of them. Yes. >> A participant in the film. >> He wasn't in the film. He just appeared briefly somewhere in the background. And I started thinking about it. Then of course many teachers are trapped both by the students and by the state. But I I started thinking then in any case they they will be ordered they will be forced as has always been done to make you know some portrait of Nikita and hang it up or set up some hero's desk or something. And you know, it reminded me of those true crime stories where the police are looking for a serial killer and can't find him. And then when they find him, they go to his house. And he has like there uh some hair tie, some like ring or something from each victim. From each victim a >> well some accessory. and the school. >> You walk in, oh, one portrait. Oh, a second portrait. Oh, a third portrait. And here's a 19-year-old. >> It's like walking into some serial killer's lair. And do the teachers realize that they are part of this? that they did everything possible so that for this specific nikita this was a part of life, a part of a normal existence in society. And this is again going back to that very first question we discussed about how uh it leaves behind a lot of evidence >> this system. >> Yes. Yes. This system. Well, based on your conversations with them perhaps or indirect uh factors, is there a sense of any changes, some internal reflection? >> I haven't heard a thing. Haven't seen a thing. >> No, nothing came up. >> So, society accepts it. >> It hurts me so much that I didn't manage to film our PE teacher. She and I left Russia at the exact same time. I went to Copenhagen to edit the film and she became a drone operator. >> Boy, >> can you believe it? >> And they ran a news segment about us at the same time. She was the hero, you know, and I was Judas the traitor. >> That was the theme. Yeah. Doing this is also so interesting >> and very sad. Of course, >> the school is on the balance sheet. >> Yes. Pros and cons. and >> um your film although uh in Russia uh as I understand of course it's banned but uh pirate copies seem to be circulating and it even reached Karabash apparently and was popular there. Tell us what kind of reaction did it cause among your acquaintances. >> Oh about that about the reaction one can talk endlessly. Uh but uh despite the fact that there is this publication 74. Which wrote on truths uh and but they chose uh the title the bombshell effect. Now that's inaccurate of course the bombshell effect because the most important rule was uh for in the pro process of making this film to do everything possible so that nobody knew anything because that's both my safety and the safety of all the participants. >> Yes. >> And how in fact how are they reacting now? >> In different ways. In different ways. And >> still you did win an Oscar, right? >> I expected different different uh comments. But um what can I tell you with certainty that you'll never guess you'll never guess who will write what to you. Like we had a colleague, you'd talk to her and feel some notes of sanity about what's happening in the country and she was critical of all of it. She worked at the children's art center or works there, I don't know now. And so we have it in such a critical state. The roof is leaking. There are not just sprouts on the wall, stelactites are forming. So, she uh buys plasticine with her own money so the kids can sculpt something, paints, brushes, because the state doesn't provide any of this. It's not rockets. It's not bombs. >> Mhm. >> Uh and she writes to me, uh you're such a piece of trash. >> Mhm. even though you look at it, you talked to her before you and you expected some more or less positive or at least no reaction at all. Right? And there were cases where uh people specifically added me uh and said, "Thank you so much for not becoming an armchair expert and for showing all of this." >> Well, I doubt that history teacher Pav Abdul Manov is among those. That's the second group, right? He's unlikely to be. But overall, are there more positive or negative reviews? >> Uh, different. You know, uh, say 20 positive ones and one negative one will cross it all out because that one negative one, it's written with quite a lot of rage. And I get a lot of of negative comments, by the way, from Slovakia, >> from residents of Slovakia, >> from residents of Slovakia and Slovak. And these are not uh throwaway accounts. >> Possibly the influence of FICO's populist regime. Interesting. >> Yes. >> Um very interesting. Thank you, Pavl. And of course uh it's clear that the film changed your life and thank you so much uh once again for >> Oh, yes. Wait, I sorry I'll interrupt you about also about the reaction to the film. We I can't be entirely precise because And it's a story that reached me firsthand. So after the film became known, uh, FSB officers came to the school and gathered the directors of all educational organizations for a meeting and said that this film never existed and doesn't exist. This person never existed and doesn't exist. Nobody calls this person because he gives interviews. Oh, nobody comments on this film in any way. They said everyone will start calling you now. Nobody comments on this film in any way. Uh our poor secretary, she got extra work just picking up the phone and saying we don't know anything and uh answering phone questions. So yeah and yes but they they they successfully managed this until the BAFTA came until the Oscar nomination came and then the Oscar itself and and by then it became impossible for them to hide it all. It all started to spread. It kind of reminds me of how uh Putin avoided calling Navali right by name. that is at first they ignore it completely right so as not to give extra PR [snorts] extra apparently media coverage but in the end and how are they now when the Oscar story has already happened >> well journalists came to them uh as far as I know Russia today journalists came to them they were preparing a segment about how uh they grab a parent go with them to the prosecutor's office so they would file uh a complaint against me that I used footage from the school without permission and they left empty-handed. Then journalists from Rasia 1 came to them that's something there uh that what is it I don't remember 60 minutes let them talk I don't remember what it's called and they also left with nothing and they will get so far of course well someone had to say something but as I understand it it worked like this a journalist arrives and they tell him we don't know you but we know him get out of here right and that's why they apparently had to go to Malikov they were Well, yeah. >> And by the way, people were quite willing to talk to Malikov. Yeah. >> And I know the topics of those conversations. And I saw uh Yeah. They practically signed me up for Orthodoxy there. Lord, Lord have mercy. >> So, there's an episode of Malikov's show specifically dedicated to the film. It's in the works. >> It's in the works, of course. Well, Karabash, Karabash is a small village. Everyone, everyone knows each Well, at the very least, the film put Karabash on the map and they should be grateful to him for that at least. >> Well, they will be. We we we we just have to wait. We have to wait. Right now, of course, they're all furious. A little time will pass and they'll be grateful. >> Oh, and you were asking there, you had a very interesting question. How does society react? And I took it to mean that it's with the fact that so many body bags started coming back. I also, you know, I've thought about this. Why don't people react in any well in any way? And I came to the conclusion that >> it was it was later during Muratov's speech he started showing uh people in coffins what what political prisoners look like and he showed a person in a coffin. I don't remember his name. Pavo the pianist. Pavle. Pav. >> Oh, is that the one who died so Yeah. Tragically >> it was ugly. Yeah. What they did to him. Uh, and I thought that these body bags that arrive, they're closed. Nobody sees them. The parents don't see them. >> I think, yeah, if if they saw them. >> So, you think they closed them on purpose? >> I don't know. Maybe it's for some sanitary regulation, but it has the effect of making it all so easy for them >> to say goodbye, right? >> Yes. >> Yes, that's a very accurate observation. And of course, Pavl, the film radically changed your life. Once again, thank you so much for your courage and the opportunity to show uh Russia the propaganda situation from the inside. And I'd love to know, of course, how you're living now, what you're doing, and if you're working maybe on any new projects. I need to I really need to. I have a dream now. So all of our guys who worked on the project, meaning the assistant director, the producer, they were made uh academy members. They are now uh members of the Oscar Academy. But according to the rules, you can't you you can't get in. You can't become an academy member if you only have one festival film. And mine is my first and probably my last. So and I want to become an academy member. And do you know why? They have a cool retirement home in California for academy members. It's just fantastic. We went there on a tour and I thought, my god, I want to grow old here. So now I have this obsession, >> a long-term plan. I urgently need to uh save up some money for old age and somehow I don't know make another film yet to become an academy member but it has to be festival one. >> Well I think there are still plenty of ideas right and unfortunately the war doesn't seem to be ending so I'm afraid you'll still have material. There are plenty of opportunities for implementation. >> Yes. Yes. >> Well thank you so much Pavle for joining us today. >> Thank you so much for having me. It was very interesting. Unfortunately, our time is coming to an end. Thank you so much to everyone who listened to us in Russian. 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