The Meeting Place Cannot be Changed
"A Thief Should be in Prison". The Meeting Place Cannot be Changed (1979). Director: Stanislav Govorukhin
Description: The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (Место встречи изменить нельзя) is set in post-World War II Moscow, and follows MUR (Moscow Criminal Investigations) detectives as they hunt down a dangerous gang of criminals operating in the city. In this scene, Vysotsky plays Gleb Zheglov, a hard-edged Moscow detective whose confidence borders on menace. His famous line, “Вор должен сидеть в тюрьме” (“A thief should be in prison”), compresses the show’s moral world into a single imperative. It also hints at the uneasy Soviet fascination with power exercised without hesitation.