Cargo 200 (Gruz 200) (Груз 200)

Based on true events.

Artem, you tell mom that I’ll come to see her…

in about two weeks.

It’s… I’m just tied up now.

OK.

I am to go to Leningrad anyway.

Will have to attend to some things before lectures begin.

You look drowsy, huh?

Some troubles in the university?

No. Nothing’s happening there.

The usual squabble.

Ah, whatever... So, how are things at home?

All in good health? Ah, thank God, thank God…

I see you believe in God now?

Oh look, there is your niece with her fiancé.

Hey listen, how’s your Slavka doing?

Haven’t seen him for long time.

Last time I came to see you, he just left for some tourist camp.

Actually, it is Slavka who troubles me now.

You know, Misha, kids are different now, I just don’t understand him.

We did it all ourselves, by the sweat of our brows,

while he is just having it handed on a plate.

Everything is for him.

Yet he doesn’t respect us.

Despises even.

I forced him in the university, to save from ending up in Afghan.

And is he studying? This is how he’s studying!

Parties all day long.

Do you know this word? Some underground concerts.

This damned rock… Every day I expect…

a call from militia.

Here, look.

The recent photo of him.

Look at him…

All my life I’ve been doing what’s right…

and it turns out nobody needs it now.

And nobody needs me. Though, I’m not that old.

I feel something’s gone forever… and what is coming I don’t understand.

After Andropov died…

everyone started to fidget.

In our department, In the department of scientific communism.

In the department of history. Students too, obviously.

Hello, uncle Artem. Oh, hi Lisa.

Hello. Haven’t seen you for ages.

The whole two months passed.

Yes. Will you stay for long?

Oh no, I’ll go soon. Want to visit your grandma.

How is my brother Slavik?

Partying around.

Cool!

This is Valery, my friend.

Valery Buadze.

Half Georgian, but have never been to Georgia.

Kazakov Artem Nikolaevich, from Leningrad.

Okay then, we’ll have some tea in the kitchen…

You know, I have to get up early, and I still need to pack.

Is he really a fiancé? Oh come on, I was kidding.

But I think she likes him.

You know, he is a nice chap.

Not some dummy, I think.

Every year he enlists to work somewhere in the North…

and returns with good money.

Look, I am a colonel, right?

The conscription officer. And he earns three times as much as I do.

Just a punk, yet owns a car.

And not the kind you have.

So it’s not that simple, Artem.

He is not a student then? Nope.

And why is he not in the army? Well, he is not local, actually.

He is staying at some old woman’s house.

Says, that’s his grandmother…

So, I’m helping him here and there.

You know what’s happening in Afghan now, don’t you?

During this time to our shithole alone…

26 caskets arrived. Artem, 26!

Cargo 200 they call them.

And look what’s going on throughout the country!

You be careful, Mikhail…

Who is he, this uncle of yours?

Head of Scientific Atheism Department in the Leningrad University.

He helped me to get in last year.

So, will we go to disco then?

I told you I wanted to have a good sleep. I need to pack too…

You said yourself, the earlier we leave, the sooner we are there.

Look, we’ll just come round.

Valera, no! Well, whatever.

You’d better have a good sleep too, you are to drive.

It is a long way, and you say the road is bad.

Don’t you worry for me. I’ve seen worse roads.

Thank you for helping Lisa.

Oh, come on, Lisa is a smart girl, she could enter all by herself.

Where is it she is going to bright and early?

To Yara, her friend, a classmate, has a dacha there.

So, they thought they’d go to swim, to mushroom.

It’s all right, they are nice kids. They go just for a couple of days.

I can pick her up on my way back to Leningrad.

Come on, she is not some mollycoddle. She can take a bus.

All right then, I’ll call you when I’m coming back from mom’s.

Thanks for the food, it is such a problem here now.

Is there any left for mom? Yeah, I’ve got two bags full.

I’ll be off then.

Damn.

Dammit!

Hi.

Where is Lisa? Lisa? She is a…

She thought she’d go to bed early. We leave tomorrow early morning.

Hey, don’t you recognize me?

It’s me, Angelika, Lisa’s friend.

It’s my dacha we are going to tomorrow. Of course I recognized you.

Wanna dance? Sure, just wait a sec.

I’ll be back. OK.

Stay here.

Hi.

Good evening. Excuse me, are you the boss here?

Excuse me for barging in.

I was just going to Leninsk, and my engine died.

I tried to hitch, but no one stopped.

And I saw your house. And thought… Maybe here is someone who knows about engines?

Thank you.

Hello. Are you the boss here?

Good rifle. Simpson.

I am a hunter myself, I have granddad’s Simpson.

Vodka? What?

You see, I am going to Leninsk…

and my engine died on me.

No one stopped, so I thought… maybe you could help me?

I saw your lights from the road.

Tonya! Sit down.

Thank you.

Tonya!

Hello.

Where is Sunka? He was in the bathhouse.

Call him. And get us something to eat.

How long do I have to wait!

Where are you from? From Leningrad.

I am going to my mother, to Leninsk.

What’s your name? Kazakov Artem Nikolaevich.

We don’t use patronymics here. I am Alexey.

You wait, maybe we’ll think up something.

Are you an engineer?

No, I am professor of scientific atheism in the university.

Sunka!

Eh? Come, the master is calling.

Coming.

What comes first, the matter or the conscience?

Marxist-Lenin philosophy denies the idea of God,

as the idea based on the impossibility of cognizing the world that surrounds a human…

No, you scientist just tell me, does God exist or does he not?

This is exactly what I am trying to explain you.

You called me, master? Go bring us some from the bathhouse…

or we won’t be able to sort it out with the professor here.

All right, master.

OK then, come on, professor. Master asked this… from bath…

A buyer? No, this… professor…

You hear, Ton’? The scientist professor says here God does not exist.

So, no God then? No.

What is it? Mushroom soup.

Well then, what does exist?

There is a dynamic matter that is given to us in the form of sensations.

And soul? Is there a soul?

No, Alexey, there is no soul either.

So, what about my car?

Here.

So, Artem, no God then? No soul.

There is conscience and matter.

Then where this all comes from?

Conscience, for instance? Alexey, this is just an idle talk.

There is the Darwinian theory, which is taught at school.

You want me to believe that a monkey grabbed a stick and then evolved to…

abstract thinking?

Let’s drink. No, I can’t, thank you.

I need to go to Leninsk. How?

OK, I’ll go. Wait.

You came, so don’t offend the hosts now.

We opened our soul to you, though you don’t have one.

Good, this is our way, professor.

You eat your soup, eat. Tonka makes good soups.

Have cucumbers too, homemade.

Sun’, when you’re finished, get the car keys from the professor.

Check what’s wrong there.

So, Artem, nothing’s there?

You see, Alexey, I am an agnostic.

I believe in the cognizability of world, and I don’t believe in the supernatural.

So, will you repair it?

It’s… Plug needs cleaning…

and carburetor.

Give me a cloth.

Cloth.

Will it take long? Half an hour takes...

Are you Chinese? No, I am Vietnamese.

And why do they call you Sunka?

I Suan-Van-Hey.

It’s in Russian become…

Sunka.

I was working in big plant.

It’s in Leninsk.

Then they took me here.

To pour vodka, and work in garden.

I like here. I love garden.

I’ll go to the house. It’s cold here.