Authors

Discussion

Late Soviet Petrocinema: Farman Salmanov in Aleksandr Proshkin’s «Risk Strategy» (1978)

Risk Strategy was released in the same year as the more famous Siberiade by Andrei Konchalovsky following a consolidated effort by the oil and gas industry to promote the image of its workers through art and culture. By the then Soviet standards, both Siberiade (a feature film) and Risk Strategy (a three-part TV mini-series) were of epic proportions (275 and 210 minutes respectively). Together, yet independently from each other, Konchalovsky and Proshkin set out to prove that to tap into, and tame, the magical petroelements, one should possess some extraordinary human qualities. 

The human dimension of oil extraction is shown, in both Siberiade and Risk Strategy, by focusing, inter alia, on the real-life Soviet Azeri oil prospector, Farman Salmanov (1931-2007), portrayed in Siberiade as Tofik Rustamov and in Risk Strategy as Farid Askerov. While working in Western Siberia in the 1950-80s, Salmanov became instrumental in discovering c. 150 oil and gas deposits. A comparison between his memoirs and biographies, on the one hand, and his fictionalised cinema/TV persona, on the other, will afford an insight into the techniques of mythologizing oil industry professionals on the Soviet screen.