The Chelyuskinites (1985)
In February 1934, the steamship Chelyuskin was crushed by ice and sank in the Chukchi Sea. The ship's crew and members of the scientific expedition landed on a drifting ice floe, where they remained for two months. How did people live on the ice floe? How did they cope with loneliness and dispel dark thoughts? In addition to work, when the weather was good, they played soccer, volleyball, and town ball. They went on ski trips. They read. They managed to save four books: Pushkin's poems, Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha," Hamsun's "Pan," and the third volume of Sholokhov's "Quiet Don." We reminisced about our former lives, watched the northern lights, fought illness, dreamed, froze... In the evenings, we listened to a precious Marlene Dietrich record—we managed to save the gramophone, but only with two records. We published a wall newspaper called "We Will Not Surrender." They tried to be witty, played pranks. They created a choir...
Director: Mikhail Yershov
![]() |
Aleksandr Lazarev as |
![]() |
Pyotr Velyaminov as |
![]() |
Igor Komarov as |
![]() |
Evgeniy Gvozdyov as |
![]() |
Valery Kravchenko as |
![]() |
Evgeniy Leonov-Gladyshev as |
![]() |
Semyon Morozov as |
![]() |
Georgiy Teykh as |
![]() |
Elena Antonova as |
![]() |
Sergei Danilin as Sima Ivanov |
![]() |
Aleksandr Nikolayenko as |
| Camera | Nikolay Zhilin | Director of Photography |
| Directing | Mikhail Yershov | Director |
| Writing | Oskar Kurganov | Writer |
| Sound | Oleg Khromushin | Music |
| Art | Mikhail Ivanov | Production Design |