Russian Addiction. Film plot
The film starts with scenes about life in the New Millennium Russia.
NATO forces are bombing Abkhazia and Karabakh. Tatarstan, the Russian Far East and Karelia declare their independence from Russia. Moscow is bubbling with life full of joy in the face of increasing chaos. The main character in this part of the film is a scientist working for a secret laboratory in Moscow. He is working to develop an AIDS vaccine, financed by an international fund. At the same time, having received a secret order from the Russian military, he uses the allocated money to create another vaccine that transforms human skin and makes it bulletproof. The military plan to execute an army coup after receiving the expected result and start the third world war. Besides, the scientist secretly works for Russian drug dealers, trying to develop a third variant of the vaccine that can create a drug addiction in the recipient. If successful, it is planned to turn cocaine into a legal mass produced vitamin-type commodity and collect huge gross income. The carrier of all three variants of the vaccine is a single sound code. The medicine penetrates into the brain when triggered by the code. The scientist is advised by a philologist (the main character throughout the film). After many unsuccessful attempts of using sound messages in various languages, he introduces quotes by Russian writers as the code (“Is the happiness of the whole world worth a tear of one child”, ”Ah, Russia, Troika, where do you rush…”)
The scientist achieves success. During a binge dedicated to the completion of the research, an accident occurs in the laboratory; the vaccine samples are mixed with vodka and explode; an uncontrolled chain reaction begins, and a new virus is released into the atmosphere. The virus affects people, who speak Russian even a little. The virus spreads immediately. It finds the code (the quotes mentioned above) in a person’s memory and the person disintegrates into atoms, he is annihilated. Millions of people disappear on contact with the virus wherever they are — at the wheel of a car, at work, in bed. Cities fall into chaos. This is instantly detected by Western intelligence agencies. A global crisis begins, panic is widespread, and NATO is ready to deliver a nuclear attack on Russia. However, things do not go that far: as soon as they land troops in Russia the latter finds out that one sixth of dry land has becomes a deserted natural landscape…
So, it continues. Western specialists shut down nuclear reactors and other nuclear installations, and try to find the reasons of the catastrophe and unveil the key mystery – why people who know the Russian language are disappearing. They issue a law against the use of the Russian language, and all literature in Russian is destroyed. A cordon sanitaire is established around the territory of the former USSR. But in Moscow, in the cellars under a library’s reading rooms, the Philologist remains alive. He so far has failed to tell the scientist about the code that stops the annihilation of humans in time and now uses it to survive — he repeats the phrase “The monument I’ve built is not carved into stone…” every five minutes. The Philologist knows the causes of the catastrophe, and he knows about the situation in the world by using means of communication. He contacts the western intelligence agencies and informs them about the means of protection found by him, but they conceal this information, because the west is already preparing to take over the deserted territory. They create an ideology to serve their plans: Russia had been an evil empire and God destroyed it to give a new impetus to the development of world civilization. The intelligence agencies are looking for the Philologist to kill him and keep the secret.
Fifty years go by. The territory of the former USSR is divided and successfully developed by Western civilization. Ancient monuments of Moscow and St. Petersburg have been preserved, surrounded by cozy modern cities of glass and concrete. People from all over the world have found a promised land and live especially amicably and happily. They have created a perfect example of urbanization in the new territory. Meanwhile, the Philologist continues to live in solitude in the underground labyrinths of Moscow. He found that his aging process had been stopped. The intelligence agencies continue to search for him. His photos are distributed everywhere. He is declared the Devil, who anyone should kill at the first encounter.
However, after a while in the territory of the former USSR something strange starts happening. After walking on the landscape, the migrants discover the need to speak Russian. At first, people accidentally drop obscene phrases. These people are hunted down and isolated. But the need for speaking in Russian is growing among the migrants being it the president of the country or unemployed. Russian goes “underground”, people use it in secret, among their family. Their language skills increasingly improve.
Meanwhile, a comet flies very close to the Earth, solar activity rises and as a result, the epidemic of AIDS erupts with renewed vigor around the world. It takes the lives of millions of people. There is no time to create another vaccine. People have to start using the one that was developed in the secret laboratory in Moscow, and a sample of which the Philologist had handed over to the intelligence agencies. People get vaccinated everywhere on the planet. It brings an immediate positive effect — the immuno-compromised get healed at once. At the same time, there are side effects: people’s skin becomes bulletproof, they become aggressive, and they acquire a pathological need to serve in the army. Huge lines are formed at conscription points. In addition, drugs no longer have a destructive effect on the human body. Cocaine is available everywhere. People have constant hallucinations that make them behave in a strange way. Every person who is vaccinated against AIDS receives a prayer book in Russian with quotations by classics of Russian literature, since the vaccine enters the brain only via this sound code. People are told that for their salvation they need to pray in an ancient Indian language.
In the last scene of the film, the Philologist takes a prayer book in his hands and discovers that the key phrase “The monument I’ve built is not carved in stone…” is translated incorrectly in it! It means that there is no protection against the annihilation and all people on the planet can disappear in the near future. He immediately calls the publisher. The editor answers the phone; it is clear that he is under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. The editor absently responds that it was a typing error, but no worries — the error will be corrected in the next edition…
1993, Published in Maxim Moshkow’s e-library Lib.ru, in 2003, in the book «Migration of the Soul», volume one, 2012.
About the author:
Viktor Afanasyev, pen name — Viktor Avin, was born August 11, 1960. After finishing school, he enrolled in the economic faculty at the Leningrad State University (LSU) in 1977. In 1982, following his graduation, he was set up as a factory economist. In 1990, he finished a special preparatory course for employment at the Leningrad university. He subsequently finished professional film production courses at LSU. He is currently employed at a healthy commercial organization in Saint Petersburg. He is married with two children.
