The Event

In August 1991, a failed coup attempt by hardline communists in Moscow marked the end of the Soviet Union's 70-year reign. The USSR quickly dissolved, and the Russian Federation proudly raised its tricolor flag over the Kremlin. While President Gorbachev was held captive by the coup leaders, state television and radio, taken over by the conspirators, played Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" instead of delivering news. Meanwhile, crowds of demonstrators gathered around Moscow's White House to support the democratic resistance led by Boris Yeltsin. In Leningrad, thousands of anxious and hopeful citizens flooded the streets, eager to be part of this pivotal moment. Twenty-five years later, Sergei Loznitsa reflects on those dramatic days in August 1991, a time celebrated globally as the dawn of "Russian democracy."