Press Release, 18.04.2019

The documentary “The Optimists” was filmed at the end of 2018 and is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Yabloko party. The protagonists tell not only about the history and formation of Yabloko, but also recollect the key events in the history of Russia for the past 25 years.

“This is broader than the history of a party. This is a story of victories and defeats, hopes and disappointments of the Russian society, millions of people, which is told from the positions that rarely get the opportunity to be expressed in today’s mass media,” says Alexander Gnezdilov, one of the film’s authors.

The following people took party in the filming: Yabloko founders Grigory Yavlinsky, Vladimir Lukin and Viktor Sheinis, as well as people who were directly involved in the formation of the Yabloko electoral bloc in 1993: Valery Borschyov, Anatoly Golov, Igor Yakovenko; members of the Regional Party of the Centre, which later transformed into the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko – Igor Artemyev and Alexander Shishlov; State Duma deputies from Yabloko – Sergei Ivanenko, Alexei Melnikov, Sergei Mitrokhin, Alexei Arbatov, Boris Misnik and Vyacheslav Igrunov; the most active acting deputies from Yabloko in the regional parliaments –  Lev Shlosberg and Boris Vishnevsky; Yevgeny Bunimovich, Ombudsman for Children’s Rights in Moscow and ex long-term deputy of the Moscow City Duma; active supporters of Yabloko Vladimir Ryzhkov and Galina Shirshina; today’s party Chairperson Emilia Slabunova and her deputies Nikolai Rybakov and Alexander Gnezdilov, as well as representatives of the young generation of Yabloko – Kirill Goncharov, Maxim Katz, Ivan Bolshakov, Ksenia Lavrentieva and several dozen other members of the Yabloko party, working in Moscow and in other cities of Russia.

Since 17 April, the documentary “The Optimists” is available on the YouTube channel of the Yabloko party. Previously, it was shown at the Documentary Film Centre in Moscow, as well as in the Moscow and regional offices of the party.