Gorki Resort

In the Soviet prison camp Gorki Resort arises is a duel between a powerful Soviet commander and a young Polish lieutenant, who fights for his life and must make a fundamental decision to save his soul.

At the beginning of World War II, on the morning of September 17, 1939, Soviet troops invaded Polish territory. Stalin’s plan, starting with Poland, was to conquer all of Europe and create a communist “paradise” there. The Soviets captured about 22,000 Polish officers and placed them in three camps. One of these was the Kozelsk Monastery, which was taken over by the Bolsheviks after the revolution and turned into a sanatorium.

This story is a rehash of the Katyn Massacre, in which the Soviets murdered thousands and thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn forests.

Among those imprisoned, in addition to professional soldiers, were the elite of the Polish intelligentsia: university professors, writers, artists, lawyers, doctors, etc. They were not killed immediately because Stalin hoped that many of them would be persuaded to embrace communism. He believed that they would be the beginnings of a new, communist European intelligentsia. To this end, the Soviets sent their best agent, Vasily Zarubin, to the main camp.

Also sent to Kozelsk was our hero and protagonist, Lieutenant Karol Grabowski, a gifted pianist, a joker, a prankster, spoiled by artistic success.

Zarubin recognized Grabowski – he had attended his concert before the war. From the point of view of the mission he had to fulfill, Grabowski was of special interest to him.

Between Zarubin and Lieutenant Grabowski there will be a psychological duel. It will be a struggle between victim and executioner, loyalty and betrayal, between a cynical Soviet agent and a Polish intellectual. This fight will change our hero and bring him to the edge of his moral limits.