Documentary film “Above the sky, above the mountains. The Battle of the Passes" - about the Battle for the Caucasus - will be demonstrated in schools, municipal cinemas in Sochi, Sochi State University

The Rosa Khutor resort, on the initiative and with the support of which this film was created, handed it over to the Administration of Sochi for demonstration as part of commemorative events in honor of the 80th anniversary of one of the most important battles of the Great Patriotic War.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of one of the longest and bloodiest battles of World War II - the Battle of the Caucasus. It lasted 442 days (from July 25, 1942 to October 9, 1943), and went down in history as a complex of defensive and offensive operations carried out in the most difficult conditions. In the plans of the German leadership to seize the Caucasus, where up to 95% of all oil in the USSR was produced, an important place was assigned. The German Army Group A was opposed by the troops of the Southern and part of the forces of the North Caucasus fronts. The Soviet troops were faced with the task of stopping the enemy, wearing him down and preparing an offensive. Having withstood a powerful onslaught, they managed to prevent the Germans from gaining access to Baku and Grozny oil. The enemy was seriously defeated, and the initiative began to pass into the hands of the Soviet command.

All events and stories included in the film “Above the Sky, Above the Mountains. Battle of the Passes” have a documentary basis. Filming took place at the sites of former military operations in 1942-1943: in Rostov-on-Don, Sochi, Tuapse, Sukhum, the Abkhaz mountain village of Pskhu, on the Aishkha, Sanchara passes and in the Semashkho region. The film uses the creative team's own footage, as well as fragments of newsreels filmed on the ground by front-line cameramen from the collection of the Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents (RGAKFD, Krasnogorsk), newsreels, music and songs of the 30s-40s.