According to a statement by Vladimir Putin quoted in the film's opening credits, the oil and gas industry accounts for half of the Russian state budget. The documentary follows the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzgorod pipeline, which has been delivering natural gas from western Siberia to western Europe since 1983, from Urengoy to Cologne and documents the lives of the people along the route, which not only connects Russia and Europe spatially, but also places both in an indissoluble mutual dependence.

(RU/CZ/DE 2013, Director: Vitalij Manskij)

In cooperation with Kino Krokodil, the Media Library of the Institute for Eastern European Studies is showing a film series on energy policy in the former Soviet Union from May to July 2021. Documentaries and feature films on the oil industry, electrification, nuclear power, desert irrigation, and gas production reconstruct Eastern Europe as a space where economic dependence on raw materials and political energy utopianism form a toxic alliance that has disastrous consequences for people and nature.

Film schedule:

05/17/21 Forty Hearts (Sorok serdec)
(USSR 1931, Director: Lev Kulešov)

31.05.21 Kerosene
(RU 2019, director: Jusup Razykov)

06/21/21 Earth Thirsts (Zemlja žaždet).
(USSR 1930, director: Julij Rajzman)

28.06.21 The Bell of Chernobyl (Kolokol Černobylja)
(USSR 1987, Director: Rollan Sergienko)

05.07.21 Pipeline (Truba)
(RU/CZ/DE 2013, Director: Vitalij Manskij)

Contact person: Susanne Strätling