Vladimir Tochilin

Women's Club

Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin's Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.

Following the Russian Civil War, a loyal Red, Shilov, must prove he is at home among strangers as he attempts to recapture a shipment of gold that he was supposed to deliver to Moscow. Needed as a means of buying food for the people, the gold Shilov was entrusted with is stolen, initially by a group of assassins and then by a group of bandits. In tracking the gold’s whereabouts, Shilov’s motives are questioned and he is suspected of treason, in part because his brother was a devoted White. In an effort to clear his name, Shilov locates the gold, but he also discovers rampant greed and corruption.

It follows political events in Russia at the beginning of the century, during the birth of the Social Democratic Party, among the first fighters of which was Vera Protasova, the daughter of a lawyer who defended Narodnaya Volya members in court.