Turkish Gambit - the movie

On July 16, 2006 New York Times ran the article “The Russians Are Filming! The Russians Are Filming!”  This was the place where for first time I noticed the movie titled “Turkish gambit.”  It was cited that the movie, produced in 2005 was a huge success domestically.

The movie is based on the Boris Akunin’s novel of the same name.  The plot is superimposed over realistically represented historical events and has the suspense that rivals the one in Sherlock Holmes’ stories.  The fact that you can hear four languages spoken by the characters makes the movie as authentic as possible.

As proof of closely followed historical events one can consider the movie’s art design.  If you were able to attend the exhibit “Russia” hosted by the Guggenheim museum in Manhattan in the end of 2005, then you could not missed the paintings by Vasily Vereshchagin and in particular the one named “Defeated: Service for the Dead.”  The same scene that Vereshchagin depicts is now part of the movie. (cf. pic. 01 and pic.02)  Vereshchagin himself witnessed those battle scenes and it is said that he too was seriously wounded in that war.
pic. 01
pic. 02
That war is the Russo-Turkish war of 1877–78, which by the political science is labeled humanitarian war.  A war in which for such noble motives 200,000 Russian boys died in order to liberate their brethren Slavs from the Muslim law of the Ottoman Empire.  Also in that war the Russian were the closest to retake Constantinople back in Christian hands since its fall under Muslim rule.  Snapshots pic. 03 – 04 depicts that Russian military maneuvers, which was stopped by the threat imposed by the World police those days – the Great Britain.
pic. 03
pic. 04
Snapshot pic. 05 depicts the culmination in the story – revealing the Turkish agent and subsequently pic. 06 is about the fight for his elimination.                         pic. 05
pic. 06
On snapshot pic. 07 the leading lady Varvara Suvorova asks: “Who won?” A such important question that shows a will and bravery.  Also a question one could imagine very important in nowadays in the ongoing quiet war of civilizations (cf. Huntington’s book “Clash of Civilizations”). 
pic. 07
The last snapshot pic. 08 shows the good agent with Serbian descent Fandorin, revealing his next endeavor – mission in Japan.
pic. 08
By the way that is the place where during Russo-Japanese war Vereshchagin lost his life while on board on one of the Russian’s flagships, which was sunk by the Japanese.