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One, two, three...
TV Channel Russia in cooperation with VERA movie company
and the Federal Agency for Culture and cinematography present
A Gleb Panfilov TV series
THE FIRST CIRCLE
Based on Alexander Solzhenitsyin's epic novel
A VERA movie company production
Screenplay Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Director Gleb Panfilov
Producers-in-chief Anion Zlatopolsky and Maxim Panfilov
Producers Sergei Shumakov and Marina Osmolovskaya
Camera Mikhail Agranovich
Set design Anatoly Panfilov and Konstantion Zoubrylin
Music Vadim Beebergan Sound Yury Motorkin
Starring
Yevgeny Mironov as Gleb Nerzhin
Dmitry Pyevtsov as Innokenty Volodin
Sergei Karyakin as Dmitry Sologdin Alexei Koloubkov as Lev Roubin
Yana Esipovich as Simochka Yevgeny Stychkin as Pryanchikov
Igor Kvasha as Stalin Roman Madyanov as Abakumov
Alexander Tyutin as Yakonov Vladimir Konkin as Verenev
Igor Ugolnikov as Ryumin Vyacheslav Bogachev as Selivanovsky
Voiceover narration Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Action time December 24-27, 1949.
The Marfino Sharashka (Prison and Research Institute)
Episode 1
These Special Scientific Research Institutions
were known in the popular lore as "sharashkas"
since they were first organized in 1930
when the first wave of engineer convicts hit the prisons.
The first sharashka, set up in Moscow in the Furkasovsky Lane.
churned out the engineering design of the Belomorkanal.
The Ramzino Thermal Power Generation Institute followed suit.
The first results pleased the authorities.
Outside prison walls it is impossible to couple
two prominent engineers or acclaimed scientists.
They are sure to start fighting for the pecking order
or the Stalin Awards.
The sharashka confinement quickly extinguishes all these illusions.
Both a Nikolai Nikolaevich gets his half a glass of sourcream
and a Petr Petrovich does.
Well, won't it be exciting to invent something?
Many scientific breakthroughs stemmed from such sharashka chats.
In fact that's what these sharashkas were created for.
Should I call them, or not?
It is Christmas eve on Western calendars.
Two weeks vacation.
Trusting babes! Stupid donkeys!
Should I call now?
Or should I wait with this call until Thursday or Friday?
It will be too late!
Too little time to think it over and no one to seek counsel from...
Is there a way to trace a public phone booth call?
What if it would be a Russian-only narrative
that would end with my abrupt departure?
Will they identify a muffled voice over the telephone?
There are no such technical gadgets.
In three or four days I'll fly out there myself.
Procrastinating will be more reasonable and more logical.
But soon it will be too late for anything.
Damn! I wish I had never earned anything about that.
But in fact does this really matter?
Oh God! Let the fate toss its coin...
It was so stupid to have been chasing around in a taxi
and making the driver a witness.
It was a moron decision, but there were no other options.
A call from a stand-alone booth would be more conspicuous.
Wouldn't it be better to pick one in the thick of it all.
A booth near a subway station would be a good choice.
Could you pull down right here? Keep the change.
Thanks.
The emphasis is
with not uttering a word in English or in French.
There mustn't be a single feather or another cue for these hounds.
Gena!
I'm about to get through with this paper.
Come on! I'm always off my feet.
I have a Party History workshop tomorrow. Try standing with it.
Attention!
The US Embassy. Good afternoon. Hello!
Is that the secretariat? - Yes.
Put me through to the Ambassador at once.
I can't switch you to his phone. What is your business?
Then put me through to the charge or the defense attache.
This is urgent!
All right. I'm switching you to the attache. Stand by.
Hello. What's up?
Mr. Military Attache! -Yes?
Sir, I beg you to write down...
And pass to the Ambassador at once...
Hold on. I'll summon an interpreter here.
I can't wait.
I won't talk to any of the Soviets!
Don't hang up! Don't!
Who are you? Identify yourself. - The fate of your country
is at stake. Other countries will be affected as well.
During the next few days the Soviet spy Koval
is to pick up in a New York radio shack...
I hardly follow you. Call the Canadian Embassy.
Listen! -Yes.
Within the next few days the Soviet spy Koval
is to receive important technological data
on the A-bomb production. The exchange will take place
in a radio shack at the following address...
Gena! We have an emergency!
The A-word! Call the Operations!
Can you trace the call?
Arbatskaya subway station. They might be able to seize him yet.
Hello! Operations? The B1 Post calling.
This is Lieutenant Tyutin.
We've just screened a call to the US Embassy
from a public phone booth at the Arbatskaya subway station.
Salute!
Good afternoon, Nikolai Nikolaevich!
Just a minute!
Viktor Semenovich? -Yes?
Selivanovsky, Oskoloupov and Yakonov came to see you.
Bring them all in. - Yes, sir!
Come in.
Good evening! - Salute, comrade colonel!
Good evening.
Who are you?
Me? - No man. You!
Me? - You.
Are you running the Marfino installation?
Exactly.
Take a chair and join us.
Now listen...
How long have you been fooling me around
with your tales of secret telephony?
It's been dragging on for two years.
The schedule assigned 15 months to the task.
When will first two devices be ready?
And cut down your lies!
I hate lies.
Comrade Minister! Comrade Colonel General!
The personnel of our dpt won't spare a single effort...
Are we at a Party meeting or what?
I'm asking you about the exact date.
Comrade Minister!
The frequency range below 2400 Hz
and the average level of the signal
being at... -Herz, herz...
at 0.9 Hz...
I don't give a damn about your decimals here!
Provide me only with two phones, decimals or no decimals.
When? - What exactly do you mean?
We can't scramble only bilateral phone talks so far
Are you kidding?
No scrambling?
Who in the hell needs your devices that can't scramble?
Good afternoon, comrades!
Viktor Semenovich, in my opinion this is the task
that Nikolai Selivanovsky is to deal with.
The special equipment dpt is to really run for their money.
Can't they identify the voices
off the tape?
If they can not, the department should be disbanded.
They're in for it even without that.
I'll disband them to pieces all right.
But I don't follow you either.
How can a person be identified by his voice in a phone?
I'll give them a tape of the conversation.
Let them rewind it over and over again seeking for matches.
What matches?
I'll tape a better half of the Foreign Affairs.
Ministry staff right now.
No problem. But it is too much for them.
There's only 4 or 5 people who had access
to these bits of info. - Arrest the traitors!
Why all this fuss?
No big deal for the country. - I can't.
This is no Ministry of Agriculture.
We risk losing valuable contacts.
And some foreign embassy staffers
may jump over the fence.
We need to find out who it was as soon as possible.
There always comes the time for a test run of your devices.
Selivanovsky, are you up to this task?
Viktor Semenovich, I still can't grasp
the gist of it.
Some scoundrel
or even a vermin
from the diplomatic corps who had the top secret clearance
called to the US Embassy from a public phone booth tonight.
He's just blown up
two of our spies
of superb importance.
They worked on the A-bomb project.
And now we have to identify the traitor.
If you do, you'll be awarded lavishly.
Viktor Semenovich. We could do it as well.
And what facility will you employ?
What lab? -I mean the Marfino phone facility.
The Marfino spot is charged with a more important task.
Hold back. Go on.
They have 300 people. No big deal for such a crowd.
Good idea, Foma Gourianovich. Your approach is right.
The state interests always have the upper hand.
Do you see the folks I employ in the ministry?
I must be off then. - Have a good day.
I'll rush the tape over to you. - Very well.
Abakoumov speaking.
What?
Tell them
I've signed the order to have him executed
at 7 o'clock in the morning!
That's it!
It happens every time again.
They always make the buck stop here.
There must be some law on capital punishment.
There must be some law
for an open and public execution of criminals.
So, when?
You've been luring me with October or New Year prospects.
We need another month.
Just one more month, Viktor Semenovich.
So what? - February 1 is an absolute deadline.
Are you taking an honest month?
Or is that another lame excuse? - No. That's for sure.
The anniversary of Lenin's death will be on January 21.
In case you make it there would be the Stalin Prizes for all of you.
Foma, otherwise I'll tear your head off.
February 1. - What if February 1 sees nothing?
Think it over.
Are you cheating on me or not?
We'll make it, comrade minister.
Here is my word on that.
All right. I take your word on that.
Word taken and written down.
I haven't forced you on that.
I'll forgive everything
except for cheating.
Everybody dismissed.
Are you still singing the Top Ten hits?
There won't be the second one.
Are you telling this to me, Lev Grigorievich?
Yes, I'm. - I'll rub it in. Thanks.
Yes, I'm. - I'll rub it in. Thanks.
Valya, would you mind moving your hinderparts a little bit?
What are you doing here, Lev Grigorievich?
What do we need your linguistics here for?
Are you a good engineer?
Where is your affidavit from a Belgian company?
What affidavit?
As you all know I'm mad about women.
In order to love different women
a man needs plenty of money.
Therefore he must be a pro.
Am I right, Serafima Vitalyevna?
I knew I was right.
I finally identified the voice.
He's got the tremble of a bell.
Yeah, that's how I'll mark it down here.
Such a voice is recognizable over any phone.
Gleb, we seem to have advanced a lot.
Soon we'll be able to relate a voice to certain parameters.
Listening to three radio stations at once, is a real nightmare.
Would you mind turning off your set.
Serafima Vitalyevna, but this is bizarre!
How can a person
in the bloom of his life dislike the jazz beat?
The beats don't go down well with the authorities.
Lev Grigorich, who gave you the right to do so?
Engineer Pryanchnikov, you still have managed
to bring back the Atlantic mien from Europe?
Damn!
Don't prison walls host real freedom for a man?
Where does it dwell then?
It dwells in the soul.
Semen Grigorievich, this is the second Top Ten.
Yeah, this is the second one.
How do you like my new gadget?
It's even better than the previous one.
Great job!
Now what? - Gleb...
What? - I'm in such a lyrical mood.
Come on. - Have I told you about Milka?
What Milka? - A graduate of the Institute
of Foreign Languages. She was a translator at our unit.
No, you didn't.
Remember the woods towards Novo-Svinukhdvo?
What side of the river? - This side.
Right, got it.
Well, she and I went rambling in those woods.
I'd been aching for her all day. So we found an empty bunker.
The floor inside was strewn with pine branches.
A smell of resin from the walls. It was all this March and so on.
That's living.
This is happiness.
Is that all? - Yes.
You really look bad.
Listen! Happiness is just an abstract notion.
The word happiness comes from 'this moment'.
'Linger, still linger, oh beautiful moment!'
In comes from 'participation'. Look it up in Dahl's Russian Dictionary.
Do it. It denotes a part, some share of the fate
a person wrests from life...
I don't know. Milka and I were happy then.
Lev, you make me laugh!
I like you the way you are now
and not when you label people with your poetic names.
By the way I've long wanted to ask you a question.
It is a question in the course of our musings
about women...
When I was outside and read what wise men
had to say about the meaning of life or happiness.
I thought: they were sages doing what they were supposed to do.
Happiness? When life is very good to us -
that's happiness everybody knows.
Prison made me think. - Where does prison come in?
I need to illustrate my point with an example.
I think to understand the nature of happiness
we need to pry into the nature of repletion. Look!
Remember the Lubyanka or your time in counter-intelligence.
Remember that thin watery porridge
without a single sparkle of fat. Do you just eat it?
Just dine on it? No - it's holy communion!
You receive it with awed reverence. You eat it from the tip of a spoon
utterly absorbed in the process of eating
and the pleasurable feeling suffuses your whole body.
And - lo and behold!
you live six months on a diet of next to nothing!
Pigging it on choice chops
can't compare! No!
This is happiness.
It is never related to your overall welfare
we've wrested from life.
As the Taoist ethic has it:
He who knows how to be content will always be content.
Right. Milka and I were extremely content.
What Milka? - The one I was with in this bunker.
I've just told you the story.
Well, what do great Ayurvedic minds say about it?
Forget about the Vedic minds. Take this directly from me.
I've been in this con harness for five years.
Most people never understand their proper goals.
They die like ignoramuses, like you will die,
without ever knowing spiritual values.
Harken child!
You put your own experience ahead of the experience of mankind.
How do your personal disasters
make us change our convictions?
Of all the pigheadedness! You struggle to hoist your faith
in the triumph of your communism
without actually believing in it.
It's no faith! It's scientific knowledge, you dunderhead!
Who's a dunderhead here? - You are.
How can historical materialism stop being objectively true
because of two of us being in prison?
Try to understand, it was the clarion call
the ruling passion of my youth, you see?
Since that time I've received so many kicks from this life
my skepticism may be a shelter by the wayside
to sit out the storm.
You'll never make a real skeptic!
Why so? - There's a good reason to that.
Skeptics are supposed to cultivate ataraxia
or imperturbability, and you boil over at the slightest excuse!
Yes, you're right.
Ataraxia. I always train my mind...
What do I train it to do?
To soar above it all. - Yeah...
I cultivate this intellectual soaring in myself.
And still I'm getting indignant all the time.
And you're at my throat because
there's a shortage of potable water at Dzhezkazgan camp.
I wish you had ever been there.
You might have gone out a different man.
You are the only man here considering
the MGB methods appropriate. - Yes I do.
I think so because
I'm well aware of
the fact that only the surface is rotting.
The tree should be cured and not axed down.
What's next then?
The next step is the inevitable moment of choice.
We have two major global forces. Which side would you take?
Shrug the spell off! You're talking in an alien voice.
It just suits the Bozo to reason that way.
Listen! He's the supreme man.
He is the Robespierre and the Napoleon of our revolution.
You'll grasp it one day. He sees much further than...
Than both of us can see. - Much further...
And he's the only visionary around?
Prisoner Nerzhin reporting
to the director of the institute Yakonov.
Come on in.
Come in. Gleb Vikentievich. Take a seat.
Half an hour ago I thought of you and wondered
what winds had brought you to the Acoustics Lab.
I highly value your achievements here.
But you could give a better credit
to the results yielded by the 7th Lab.
Your lab considers them 'a half-goner',
albeit a precious one.
I'd like to have
a little more profit from the activities of your lab.
Why in the hell do you deal
with this mumbo-jumbo? Why should you care
about all these styr and smyr syllables
getting through the interferences?
Gleb Vikentievich, you're a mathematician.
And your knowledge is universal.
Turn around.
Indeed
the math fraternity developed
an enviable ritual of restraint.
Mathematicians have always seemed to me
to be some kind of a Rozenkreutzer-like order.
And I've always wished to be initiated into their mysteries.
Don't be shy. Shake hands.
Now I'm leaving you alone for half an hour.
Have some tea and indulge in fond reminiscences.
I hope that Professor Yerenev will brief you
on the goals that the 6th Directorate has set forth.
Hello!
Petr Trofimich.
I haven't seen you for 9 years already.
I went through the war - Poland, Byelorussia, Eastern Prussia.
All this was followed by prisons and cold transit camps.
And how have you been here? Take a seat.
I went through the evacuation. Then I defended my doctorate.
How have you got into this establishment?
It was an ordered assignment.
I could have refused
but they pay double salaries here and I have four children.
And our class lost many people to wounds and death.
But I defended my candidate's thesis.
And what about our professors? How is our Dmitry Dmitrievich?
He was shell-shocked in an air-raid
and evacuated half-dead to Kirghizia.
Do you remember his son? He used to be a lecturer too.
Do you remember him? I mean this handsome Stepan.
He turned over to the Germans. High treason.
Thanks a lot.
What were you given a prison term for?
I have wrong thoughts.
The Japanese have a law that
a man can be put on trial for his unspoken thoughts.
But we have no such law, do we?
We have such a law too. Article 58, paragraph 10 of the Criminal Code.
Well, cheers to our encounter.
You are still the same hooligan as you used to be. Cheers.
Ye evening snow!
Three dust the trees and branches.
I walk along the prison yard alone...
Well, tell.
Now what are you going to do here? In a sharashka?
The assignment is related
to the phone signal encryption.
I'm to intensify and systematize the cryptographic work here,
to give a fresh look to some formulas and methods.
But these objectives need a lot of mathematicians.
And I'm glad that I have my best student at hand here.
A lot of work ahead. - Do you know the craft
of high boot making?
What did you say? - Will you teach me this craft?
I still don't get you.
You seem to live in a shell.
When I finish serving this sentence here
I'll be dispatched to the heart of the taiga
to the lifetime exile. And I've no knack with any handiwork.
So how am I going to survive there?
There will be another three Mesozoic eras
before they need any Eulerian functions there.
What are you talking about? If we succeed
you as a prominent cryptographer will be released early.
Your criminal record will be cleared and you'll return to Moscow.
Let me answer you with a proverb.
It comes from a good friend of mine here.
The same kicks both for catching fish or smaller fry.
I can guess. - Gratitude.
I don't want their forgiveness.
I'm not interested in catching tiddlers for them.
Well, Gleb Vikentievich, have you made up your mind?
I consider that my work
in the Acoustic Lab is not yet complete.
Is this your final decision? - Yes.
It's a pity.
You've traded
the divine food
for a ration of bean pottage.
Only time can show.
You may go, Gleb Vikentievich.
Good bye. - Good bye.
Gleb grew up without ever having read a single book by Mayne Reid.
Nerzhin is to be written off.
But at the age of 12 he already took to reading
through enormous leafs of the Izvestia Daily issues
that could completely cover him and through detailed reports
on the trials of villainous engineers.
The boy didn't believe
in the ingenuity of that very first trial.
Gleb didn't understand why.
He couldn't reason it in.
But he distinctly saw all the lies behind it.
Many engineers were friends of his family.
He couldn't imagine these people
being not builders but villains.
This inveterate ability to sense
historical lies arrived to him early
and burst out very acutely in his soul.
During all his youth a muted bell rang inside him
and the urge to learn more
to discover
and to unearth the truth grew ever stronger.
And in the evenings in the boulevards of his native city
that were more becoming for dreams about girls
Gleb strolled around dreaming
about the day when he would penetrate the biggest
central prison of the country
and find the traces of the dead
and the key to that mystery.
He was a provincial boy and didn't know then
that this prison was called the Great Lubyanka
and that the great aspirations
are sure to be fulfilled.
Gleb Vikentyevich, I might address you at an improper moment?
I wanted to do a test reading of the following table.
Could you listen in and check me? I mean as a mathematician.
Surely. Go ahead.
Now what?
He's about to send me out soon.
Why?
I wish I could stay.
Probability theory, the theory of error...
It would be brain death. Desiccation of the soul.
Living for the sake of welfare only. I can't.
What room would here be for meditation?
We still wouldn't be together.
Tell me what you're writing about?
What are you thinking of? What are you hiding from me?
I'll tell you.
I'm writing a book on the history of the Russian revolution,
about the real events that happened back then.
Nobody knows it yet.
It will be a unique survey.
But anyway it will never be published.
So I'll have to burn it. - Don't burn it. Hand it over to me.
I'll take it outside and preserve it. I'll hide it.
Yes.
The snowflakes fell onto your collar
shining there like stars.
They melted on your cheeks,
glistening on your palms
an eyelashes...
The evening snow...
Howe come you know?
I read them off the paper on your desk.
What?
Are you spying on me?
How could such an idea occur to you?
I simply was very curious to learn more about your writings.
Forgive me.
I do love you.
I swear I'll never tell anything about all that.
Do forgive me.
Forget it.
I'm sorry too. Forget it.
Where is Serafima Vitalyevna?
Is she alone in there? - She's with Nerzhin.
Der... vskob... shtob...
I need a diode/triode combined lamp.
A double diode/triode?
Yes, 6TD2 model. Let me finish with the table.
Gven... Zhen... - OK. I'll wait here.
It's all right.
Monday... I shall be on duty.
Come in the evening, when there is no one else left in the lab.
I shall heave a shoe at that blue bulb one of these days!
The light gets on my nerves.
What, the blue light?
For one thing it has a short wave length and so more quanta.
Why is it so dark in this room?
Why do they switch the white light off so early?
Val my lad.
Twits like you would be swanning around till one o'clock.
Who needs light at midnight?
Who's smoking again?
Bastards...
Damn! The teapot's cold as well.
When will I get to the privilege of having some hot water?
We'd rather stop it. Lights out has sounded!
I dare say you'll sleep when you're ready.
Never mind lights out
I think I hear the national anthem somewhere.
They have no sense of humor.
They've been blaring out that anthem for five solid minutes.
It's gut-wrenching! When will it ever end?
Why on earth couldn't they make do with one verse?
There's an island in the Arctic Ocean. Makhotkin Island.
It's named after the polar aviator Makhotkin
who is now doing a stretch for anti-Soviet agitation.
So it is. - Listen Mikhailovich!
She puts some bed clothes on the floor for me
and lies on the bed herself.
She was a juicy piece I can tell you.
I beg you - talk about anything except women.
Our hearty meat rations turn
all this small talk into an anti-social act.
Mikhail Kuzmich why do you keep tossing and turning?
Can't I turn over if I want to? - Of course you can
but remember that every move down below
is heavily amplified up here.
You've managed to miss the camps so far.
They sleep four to a bunk there.
When one man turns over the other three are seasick.
Sometimes a man down below rigs up a curtain
and brings a woman in. And when he's shagging her...
Haven't you heard my plea?
You get a magnitude 12 earthquake! People still managed to sleep.
There are so many pretty lassies...
There so many sweety smiles...
But there is just one that really troubles me...
She steals your sleep and shreds your calmness.
You're in love...
Lev Borissovich, you're singing off the tune.
I'm so sorry.
It is a spell.
I've got news for you, pals! Bobynin's been
driven off somewhere! - What do you mean?
I dunno. The lieutenant came in and told him
to put on... - Handcuffs?
Just his coat and his hat. - Did he take his gear?
No gear.
Some big shot must have sent for him.
Foma?
Foma would have come here - aim a bit higher!
The tea's gone cold. How sordid!
You're always rattling that spoon in your glass
after lights out!
I'm sick and tired of it! - Be quiet.
So how am I supposed to stir my tea?
Noiselessly.
Only cosmic catastrophes
are noiseless.
Because the sound doesn't travel in the outer space.
Even if we had a nova outburst
right behind our backs
we wouldn't have heard it.
Rusik, your blanket is about to fall to the floor.
Why don't you tuck it in?
Do you realize that our Sun is
a nova
and that the Earth is doomed to destruction
in the very near future?
I refuse to believe it.
I'm so young and I want to live!
Compared with a star you're so green.
Can you make jokes from the other side?
Pryanchikov! Where are you?
I'm on my bed. - Get dressed quickly.
With my garb? - No garb.
The car is waiting downstairs. - A Black Maria?
A Pobeda.
Who's summoning me? - Get dressed quickly!
Valya, drop a word for all of us up there.
Tell them about section 58 prisoners get one visit a year.
Give a real earful to them. - And about the letters, too.
Well, if I'm not back, keep good remembrance of me.
Truly yours. Pryanchikov.
And don't forget about hot water, Valya.
But I need a clean shirt and a tie. - You'll get it all.
These bastards are really running around.
Listen, what has happened? This is the first time ever.
Might a war break out? Are they taking us out to the firing squad?
Shut up, fool! Why would we be picked out one by one then?
When it really starts we'll be executed wholesale.
Or they'll infect us with bubonic plague through our porridge
the way Germans did in camps in 1945.
Let's have some sleep, pals. We'll learn more tomorrow.
It used to happen that way in 1939-1940.
Beria used to summon Boris Stechkin.
And he always came back with some new assignment.
We either had a new prison head officer or extended outside walks.
Stechkin hated the bribing system.
He hated these rationing categories.
When academicians get sour cream and eggs,
professors have a daily allocation of 40 g of butter
and rank-and-file personnel -20 grams.
Boris Stechkin was a good man.
Let his soul rest in peace. - Did he die?
No. They released him.
He became a Stalin Prize winner.
Abramson has just finished serving his first 10-year sentence.
Now he was one of the few local dwellers
who lived through the full term
of these horrible 10-year stretches.
He knew that they were not a folklore myth.
They were neither a court martial nightmare
nor an anecdote that lasts until the first general amnesty
that rookies are so eager to believe in.
These were full-bodied ten or 15 years
of a real human life.
Viktor Semenovich,
engineers Pryanchikov and Bobynin are here at your request.
Start with Pryanchikov.
Engineer Pryanchikov, come on in.
Good evening.
Good evening. Do you play lawn tennis?
Occasionally I do.
I'm sorry. Are these your prizes?
Mine. - That's great.
Are you really the leading engineer of the group?
Take a seat.
Are you working on the artificial speech device?
What device? Artificial speech? It is sheer nonsense.
I'm really sorry. We simply don't call it that way.
It was a name given to it
during the anti-Western campaign.
In fact it is called a voice coder.
So you're the leading engineer, aren't you?
Yes. Now what? Don't I look like one?
I'd like to ask you as a leading engineer
to tell me honestly
without fearing any repressions from your superiors...
I'll do my best.
Tell me
when the vocoder will be ready?
But give me a straight answer.
Will it be completed in a month?
Or would it be more appropriate to speak about two months?
Don't be afraid of giving me a straight answer.
Our vocoder?
Completed? Forget it.
You might have a misconception of what a vocoder really is.
I'll explain it to you.
I'll take this sheet of paper and a pencil.
The thing is that the human voice
consists of multiple harmonics.
The idea of a vocoder
is in creating an artificial model of a human voice.
I'm sorry. It broke.
The result is the sum of almost all harmonics.
At least the most important of them are included.
Each of these bits may be
transmitted by a separate path.
I assume you're well aware, of the Decartian coordinate system.
It is high school stuff.
Do you know anything about Fourier rows?
Wait... - Let me explain...
Wait.
When will it be completed?
What? - When will it be ready?
Completed?
I've never thought about this.
The interesting thing is that the task becomes much easier
if we roughen the voice. The number of the variables...
What might the completion date be?
What's the expected completion date?
Is it March 1 or April 1?
April?
It can't be April.
Without cryptographers the process will take
no less than 3 months. It might be up to 5 months.
Also, after the encryption/decryption procedure
the quality will be even worse.
I wouldn't make a bet on that.
Let's say half a year.
Six months?
Yes. Six months.
Do you give your word on that?
Yes I do.
Please, don't get so upset.
I'll explain everything to you.
You'll see it for yourself.
The rush will be harmful to our work.
Just a minute. - Take him away.
Just a second.
I've made a drawing for you. Here it is.
Look through the formulas when you have more time.
I forgot about the most important issue.
It concerns the hot water.
We finish working late and there is no hot water.
We can't have tea. Will you help us?
All right. There will be a lot of hot water for you.
Thanks a lot.
Bring in the second one.
End of Episode 1
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