Dauria 1972

This epic drama unfolds in the Siberian province of Dauria, where a traditional Cossack village lives under the steady hand of a formidable Ataman Ataman. Set against the backdrop of the First World War and the early days of the Russian revolution, the story follows life, love, and loyalty as a close-knit community and its outlying kin are drawn into a nation’s upheaval.

The heart of the tale centers on Roman Ulybin, a young man whose passion for the beautiful Dashutka tests the limits of his family’s old rituals. His father, Severian Ulybin Severian Ulybin, is a proud elder who resents his estranged brother Vasiliy Ulybin for secretly embracing the Red revolutionaries. The family dynamics are tempered by a long-standing tradition: a Matchmaker, embodied by Svatya, is needed to broker a proper match with Dashutka before a rival wedding eclipses everyone.

As Roman’s longing grows, he chooses to leave home and follow his uncle into a world torn by war and ideology. The action widens when he is pulled into a mission to seize the Bank of Russia in Chita, a task tied to the Red revolutionaries. Coinciding with this mission, an anarchist gang led by a Navy deserter named Lavrov stages its own robbery, aiming to flee with gold to Manchuria. In the ensuing clash inside the bank, Roman is badly wounded but escapes with a small band into the taiga, only to encounter the advancing White Army and their pursuit.

Captured by anti-communist Cossacks, he faces death by firing squad but slips away by leaping into a river. After healing at Dashutka’s farmhouse, who is now alone and caring for him, Roman returns to visit his parents and learns that Severian has been forced into service with the White Army. Amid the tension, the anti-communist Ataman tries to arrest him, but Severian hides his son and helps him escape. Roman reconnects with the Red revolutionaries, plunging back into a conflict that pits loyalty to family against fidelity to a broader political cause.

The conflict escalates as a White Army detachment, guided by a ruthless executioner, brutalizes those who resist, and the village’s leader Ataman suffers a savage torture. The moment of reckoning comes when Severian is murdered by another executioner in front of the villagers, and Roman arrives as the aggressors flee, finding his mother in tears over his father’s lifeless body. The film closes on a world in convulsive change, where tradition is tested, love endures, and a family is torn apart by the sweeping violence of history.