Valery Balayan confronts footage of historical events with philosophical reflections of Russian historians from a 1990 radio program. As a result, the viewer witnesses the fulfillment of some of the prophetic insights about the development of Russian society of the recent 20 years. Footage from the past and the present is commented by Russian thinkers Mikhail Gheller, Dmitri Sezemann and Merab Mamardashvili. The film includes unique footage, such as the premiere of Abuladze’s film Repentance in Moscow in 1989, a fervent discussion on Arbat, in Moscow, in perestroika times in 1987, footage of social protests of the post-Soviet period and right-wing extremist actions in Moscow in December 2010. Merab Mamardashvili comes to the conclusion that the system, which used to be called Soviet, did not die as a historical type of civilization, “because something that doesn’t live, cannot die”. Both twenty years ago and now, it is crucial to give people a possibility to choose. “Let people build windows”!
