Documentary backdrop image for Almaz (2013)

Documentary backdrop image for Almaz (2013)

201330 minPGdocumentary

Almaz

201330 minPGdocumentary

One man lives alone on an island in Ladoga Lake, having created a miniature Belarusian Republic with a flag and a portrait of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Genres

Director

Synopsis

One man lives alone on an island in Ladoga Lake, having created a miniature Belarusian Republic with a flag and a portrait of President Alexander Lukashenko.

People

Victor Asliukdirector

Synopsis

On an island in Ladoga Lake, Alexej Kliunia lives alone among the remnants of a once-thriving community. Resettled during Stalin's regime, his family was moved from Belarus to this remote location in Carelia. Now an elderly man, Kliunia has created a miniature Belarusian Republic, where he is the sole citizen. He hangs the Belarusian flag in his hut and keeps a portrait of President Alexander Lukashenko nearby. His only companion is a horse named Almaz, with whom he often converses.

Comments

What are people saying?

Play More Like This

Undercover in Belarus: We Pretended to Be Tourists (2025)

Undercover in Belarus: We Pretended to Be Tourists

Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko's complex relationship is examined against the backdrop of Belarusian opposition, KGB repression, and the war in Ukraine.

Undercover in Belarus: We Pretended to Be Tourists

Resisting Lukashenko's Regime (2022)

Resisting Lukashenko's Regime

Belarusians, including a doctor and a former police officer, share their harrowing experiences of protest and repression under Alexander Lukashenko's regime.

Resisting Lukashenko's Regime

An Ordinary President (2021)

An Ordinary President

Alexander Lukashenko, often referred to as "Europe's Last Dictator," has maintained power in Belarus for 25 years, despite the ban on a critical film about his regime.

An Ordinary President

Merchants of War - Belarus (2007)

Merchants of War - Belarus

Belarus, under President Lukashenko, is implicated in arms sales to regimes like Iran and North Korea, raising concerns about its ties to Russia and global security.

Merchants of War - Belarus

Belarus draws international outrage after force landing of plane in Minsk (2020)

Belarus draws international outrage after force landing of plane in Minsk

Political demonstrations in Belarus following the 2020 elections faced violent suppression, yet activists and ordinary citizens remain resolute in their defiance.

Belarus draws international outrage after force landing of plane in Minsk

Assassination in Minsk - a witness speaks out (2019)

Assassination in Minsk - a witness speaks out

Twenty years ago, three opposition politicians disappeared in Belarus, allegedly abducted and murdered by a special unit under direct orders.

Assassination in Minsk - a witness speaks out

Souvenirs d'URSS – Le quotidien d'une famille russe dans l'union soviétique (2017)

Souvenirs d'URSS – Le quotidien d'une famille russe dans l'union soviétique

Kazakov, a former companion of Lenin, faces a generational clash with his daughters at a family dinner, revealing starkly different views on Soviet history.

Souvenirs d'URSS – Le quotidien d'une famille russe dans l'union soviétique

Scythian Suite - Russia (2007)

Scythian Suite - Russia

Nikolai Chuprov, the last resident of a deserted Stalin-era gulag, returns to the site of his childhood, grappling with his complex past.

Scythian Suite - Russia

Tragic triangle: Is Putin destroying Ukraine, Belarus and Russia? (2022)

Tragic triangle: Is Putin destroying Ukraine, Belarus and Russia?

Ukrainians marked their national holiday with sorrow for lost loved ones as Russia's war reached the six-month mark.

Tragic triangle: Is Putin destroying Ukraine, Belarus and Russia?

Explore Almaz

Browse more like this

Undercover in Belarus: We Pretended to Be Tourists (2025)

Undercover in Belarus: We Pretended to Be Tourists

Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko's complex relationship is examined against the backdrop of Belarusian opposition, KGB repression, and the war in Ukraine.

Undercover in Belarus: We Pretended to Be Tourists

No digital watch option in your country

Cannibal Island (2009)

Cannibal Island

2009•1h15m•★6.0TMDB

In 1933, Joseph Stalin exiled 6,000 citizens from Moscow and Leningrad to a remote Siberian island without food or clothing.

Cannibal Island

Alexei and the Spring (2002)

Alexei and the Spring

2002•1h44m•★6.7TMDB

Fifty-five older residents remain in Budische, a village 180 kilometers from Chernobyl, 14 years after the nuclear disaster.

Alexei and the Spring

Motherland (2023)

Motherland

2023•1h36m•★7.0TMDB

Massive protests erupt in Belarus as a group of young friends faces the threat of conscription amid a brutal crackdown from the authoritarian regime.

Peace and quiet beyond the mud (2023)

Peace and quiet beyond the mud

2023•25m•★10.0TMDB

Sixty years of life in a small cottage on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border shape Alik's daily routine with his mother and their deep-rooted traditions.

Peace and quiet beyond the mud

Belarus: An Ordinary Dictatorship (2018)

Belarus: An Ordinary Dictatorship

2018•57m•★6.8TMDB

Since 1994, President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus, the last dictatorship in Europe, marked by political repression and mass arrests.

Belarus: An Ordinary Dictatorship

Reporting from the Rabbit Hutch (2001)

Reporting from the Rabbit Hutch

2001•40m•★7.0TMDB

Forty minutes detail the atrocities committed by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenka against dissenting businessmen and journalists.

Reporting from the Rabbit Hutch

Kalinovski Square (2008)

Kalinovski Square

2008•1h27m•★5.0TMDB

83 percent of voters in Belarus supported Alexander Lukashenko in the controversial March 2006 election, which sparked widespread protests in Minsk.

Kalinovski Square

Lucky People (2014)

Lucky People

Two families live without electricity or communication in the Rasony district of Belarus, having returned from cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

How to Live After Being Denied a Motherland (2022)

How to Live After Being Denied a Motherland

In 2021, a significant number of people fled Belarus amid political repression, including forced public apologies and harsh sentences for opposition figures.

How to Live After Being Denied a Motherland

I Grew Up As You Slept (2018)

I Grew Up As You Slept

Out of 30 students who graduated from a Minsk conservatory, only one chose to stay in Belarus as many seek better lives abroad.

I Grew Up As You Slept

Browse more by Victor Asliuk

View all films →

Oswald. The Minsk Mystery. (2016)

Oswald. The Minsk Mystery.

2016

Epitaph (2020)

Epitaph

2020

Maria (2007)

Maria

2007

Andrei (2010)

Andrei

2010

Earth (2012)

Earth

2012

Yanka Kupala (2017)

Yanka Kupala

2017

Lucky People (2014)

Lucky People

2014

Splinters (2011)

Splinters

2011

Is this your film?

If you made this film or hold the rights to it, we'd like to talk. We can license it and pay you a share of what it earns.

License it with us →