Happy New Year, druzya! For our first film pick of 2018, we're watching historical drama Tsar from 2009, directed by Pavel Lungin and starring Pyotr Mamonov and Oleg Yankovskiy.

To discuss the film, Ally is joined by co-host of High & Low: A Kurosawa Podcast and Russian history super-fan Spencer Seams.

This episode contains moderate SPOILERs from 19 minutes in until the end.

It also includes (at least) one significant factual error about Russian history by Ally.

For. Shame. No actual prizes for spotting it(/them), but kudos if you do.

If you'd like to get in touch and tell us what you thought of the film and/or the podcast episode, here are some options:

Twitter: @RussophilesU

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: www.facebook.com/russophilesunite/

Outro music: Grubiy Zakat by Zvuki Mu (fronted by Pyotr Mamonov).