Top 3 Soviet ‘Easterns’

The ‘Western’ genre literally took the whole world by storm in the mid-20th century. Hollywood movies about dashing cowboys, sly gangsters and ruthless Indians of the ‘Wild West’ frontier in North America were binge-watched in many countries, in some of which attempts were made to film something similar.

The most successful in this were Italians with their so-called ‘spaghetti Westerns’. Some ‘red Westerns’ from socialist bloc countries, primarily from the GDR, were also quite popular.

Similar movies were also made in the USSR. However, they decided to revisit the Western genre in their own way: the setting of the Wild West in the second half of the 19th century was “relocated” to Russia during the time of the Civil War, while the prairies were replaced by the Siberian taiga, South Russian steppes and the deserts of Central Asia.

This is how the so-called ‘Eastern’ genre was born, in which there were chases, shootouts with thugs and, of course, the hunt for gold, except that the cowboys were replaced by “brave” Red Army soldiers and and the Indians by the dastardly opponents of Soviet power – White guardsmen or Central Asian Basmachi fighters.

Although the term ‘Eastern’ was not officially used in the USSR, several dozen movies were made in this genre. Below is our pick of the best three.

1. ‘The Elusive Avengers’ (1967)

The year 1920. The south of Russia is plagued by the Civil War. Four teenagers, dreaming of serving in the Red Army, clash with the anarchist Cossacks of Ataman Gnat Burnash.

‘The Elusive Avengers’ was filmed according to the canons of the classic western with shootouts, chases and the classic scene of drunken thugs shooting bottles and mugs in a pub. 

Many of the stunts were performed by the young actors starring as the avengers themselves and since there were not enough people on the set, they even had to disguise themselves as Burnash’s Cossacks and chase themselves!  

The movie had two sequels: ‘The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers’ (1968) and ‘The Crown of the Russian Empire or The Elusive Avengers Again’ (1971). 

You can watch the movie with English subtitles here. 

2. ‘White Sun of the Desert’ (1969)

The early 1920s. A small village on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, which is terrorized by a gang of Black Abdullah's Basmachi fighters. Nobody dares to fight back against the gangsters, until a Red Army soldier named Fyodor Sukhov makes an appearance.

The shooting of the movie was lengthy and hard. Film officials constantly criticized certain scenes, demanding that they be removed or reshot. Even after the end of the filming, they did not allow ‘White Sun of the Desert’ to come out on screens. 

At that point, Leonid Brezhnev, the country's leader and a big fan of westerns himself, intervened. The movie was subsequently released, eventually becoming a nationwide hit.

For Russian (as once for Soviet) cosmonauts, ‘White Sun of the Desert’ is considered a real gem. It is said that they watch it on the eve of every launch and take a copy with them into space. Superstition is that, thanks to this, the flights pass safely.

You can watch the movie with English subtitles here.   

3. ‘At Home Among Strangers’ (1974)

Southern Russia in the first years after the end of the Civil War. A group of White guardsmen carries out an attack on a train which the Bolsheviks are using to transport gold. However, they do not have time to rejoice at their loot – they themselves are robbed by Cossack Esaul Brylov’s gang.

Yegor Shilov, an employee of the Soviet special services, goes in search of the gold that is lost in the turmoil. His assignment is complicated by the fact that his colleagues believe he is himself involved in the robbery.

‘At Home Among Strangers’ was the debut work for Nikita Mikhalkov, who later became famous for the drama ‘Burnt by the Sun’, which won the 1994 Academy Award. In the movie, he also plays the role of the charming villain Brylov, whose character was inspired by ‘spaghetti Westerns’ starring Clint Eastwood.

The budding director was allocated too little deficit color film, so, some of the scenes were shot in black and white. As a result, this division became a distinctive feature of the motion picture. 

‘At Home Among Strangers’ was, in part, filmed in the Russian republic of Chechnya, while some of the members of the esaul's gang were even played by locals. Mikhalkov recalled that before the production started, they came up to him and asked: "Will you give us weapons or shall we bring ours?"

You can watch the movie with English subtitles here.