A RassKuzik about how the shooting day ends when it ends, and life goes on…

True, I confess, one single time we filmed a little tipsy. The shift lasted 14 hours instead of the 12 that an actor is officially supposed to spend on set, ready at any second to step into the frame. In the 14th hour the tireless Aleksandr Rogozhkin announced that the shift was over, and we drove out of the forest to our Pioneer camp, to the sauna, to warm our weary bones. No sooner had Buldakov, Strugachov, Haapasalo and I steamed ourselves and drunk a little vodka than the assistant director came running. Rogozhkin had decided to continue filming. Ville and I are called to the set. You should have seen the faces of the "gloaters" Strugachov and Buldakov — well of course, it wasn't them who had to go from the warm sauna into the cold night's unknown. We sighed and started getting dressed. And the assistant director hurries us along: "Faster, lads! The cops are lending us a UAZ, only for an hour! Otherwise we'll have to wait a month for it!" "What UAZ?" I asked. "We're going to film a drive-by: gamekeeper Кузьмич, disguised in police uniform, is taking the Finn Raivo to the milkmaids!" the assistant joyfully reported. Still in one trouser leg, I ran to Rogozhkin: "Sasha, how do I… drive?" Rogozhkin answered very concretely: "Drive around the Pioneer camp, in circles, along the paths. There won't be another UAZ!" Pitch dark, couldn't see a thing, loads of turns, tipsy, straight out of the sauna. One last time I tried to appeal to the all-powerful Rogozhkin: "Alexander Vladimirovich, it's terribly dark…" At that moment they mounted a huge floodlight on the bonnet, and I realised it would be shining straight into my eyes and it wouldn't matter to me whether it was dark or not… The costumer brought the police uniform, and I vividly pictured myself in it, lifeless amid a heap of flowers, a tearful, sniffling crowd, and in close-up the face of Rogozhkin, blowing his nose into a huge handkerchief again and again: "We failed to keep him safe..!" "Ahem! Ahem! Vitya, get dressed faster!" muttered Sasha. I crossed myself and headed for the UAZ. How I drove that car in utter darkness, winding along the paths of the Pioneer camp at 100 km an hour? It remains a mystery to this day. By some miracle we didn't crash. So, to those fond of asking, is it true that you drank the whole film? I answer — though in the 11 years since the film came out I've answered it a million times — nobody drank on camera. Strugachov said he'd overheard a conversation of Mikhalkov's at the premiere, who whispered to his neighbour: "I'd sack prop men like that!" The thing is, in one shot the General raised a glass to deliver yet another toast, and in the glass… all the walls were coated with tiny bubbles of air. A specialist understands at once — that's water! Vodka doesn't make bubbles!