Your Contemporary

Your Contemporary (Russian: Твой современник, romanized: Tvoy sovremennik) is a 1967 Soviet drama film directed by Yuli Raizman. It is a continuation of The Communist film. Vasily Gubanov, the son of the protagonist from the film The Communist, serves as the director of a massive industrial complex under construction in the Siberian city of Berezovka. The facility is designed to extract "koetan" (a likely reference to synthesis gas) from coal. Previously, Gubanov had championed this method and convinced authorities to begin building the enormous plant. However, he now travels to Moscow with scientist Maxim Nitochkin to advocate for halting the project. Gubanov has come to believe that extracting koetan from coal is outdated and that the transition to a more modern oil-based extraction method is necessary. This change, however, would mean abandoning the colossal construction project, into which tens of millions of rubles have already been invested. Beyond financial concerns, ethical dilemmas arise—thousands of workers have been recruited, and a new city has grown around the project. Declaring the initiative unviable would disrupt countless lives and effectively end Gubanov's career.