Matvei Saprykin had a great idea. Write, produce and shoot a real-life drama series wrapping together all that is good and bad about life in Moscow. He called it "Nash Dom" -- Our Home.
There was one small problem. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin had not too long ago founded a political party wrapping together all that is good and bad about politics, and he called it Nash Dom.
When a Moscow newspaper got the two confused, Saprykin decided it was time to change the name. "We have nothing against the party of Mr. Chernomyrdin, but our serial is not political, and with the parliamentary elections coming up, we don't want our serial associated with any particular party," said Saprykin, the producer, hastening to add that they thought of the name first. "We registered our name legally two years ago," he said.
When the first of 10 installments airs Nov. 27 at 10:40 p.m. on NTV, the show will be called just "Dom," thank you very much.
And Saprykin likes it better that way, come to think of it.
"We thought about it, and we decided it that calling it 'Our Home' had limitations -- it means there is also their home and your home," he said. "If we talk about a home, that means it is a house for everyone. We are all one country, and we shouldn't have to divide our house by ours, their, his or hers."
How's that for being flexible?
The truth is that both homes -- the political and the television one -- are remarkably similar.
The teleserial combines love, melodrama, tragedy, comedy and intrigue. It all unfolds when a Russian banker is attacked and loses the deed to a block of apartments in the famous Stalin skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya Naberezhnaya.
While his life hangs in the balance, investigators, the mafia and an American television journalist all get involved in the plot. The show's characters, by the way, are all modeled after famous figures from Russian literature.
If you were to ask Chernomyrdin, he would probably tell you a tale, if not of love, then certainly of melodrama, and definitely of intrigue.
In August, when the stakes were high in Yekaterinburg, a maverick reformer trounced a Nash Dom candidate in gubernatorial elections. It did not bode well for the fortunes of the so-called "party of power." Scorn!
Days later, Sergei Shakhrai, leader of the PRES party and a member of Nash Dom, abruptly left the party, saying "what is being built is not a wide coalition, but a closed party, with a rigid structure." Divorce!
In early September, opposition parties heaped scorn and contumely on Nash Dom, excoriating it for its excesses.
"The leaders of Nash Dom fly around the country on government planes, pretending that this is not part of an election campaign. The impudence of the party of power is simple incredible and we will put up a huge fight against it," said Yury Skokov, leader of the Congress of Russian Communities. Avarice!
And the worst of all: Alexander Kashcheyev, thrown out of Nash Dom in September, says he fears for his life for having gone against the grain.
"I know I cannot go back home, and friends have advised that I hide my family somewhere," he said in September. Intrigue!
Saprykin insists that his teleserial is not a soap opera and is a higher quality production than the typical Mexican telenovela.
Chernomyrdin, then, would likely say his political party is not a soap opera either. Let the viewer, or the voter, decide.
"If there are any parallels, they are not specific," Saprykin said. "And they just come from everyday life."
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