From his first film, from the first role, he was amazed by him.
Old Man: If I like an artist, I collect CDs with him.
They didn’t even release discs anymore, but I collected everything and put it on a shelf.
"Simple Things" and "How I Spent This Summer" became a revelation, a discovery, a charm.
All his physiognomy, his gestures, his voice - bribed.
The person who starred in these films immediately became my friend.
Such, you know, about what in the childhood dreams.
But I won’t come to him, I won’t say: let’s be friends.
We are grown men, after all, busy people.
When the director Aleksey Uchitel was shooting a film based on my story "Eight", I offered him Sergei Puskepalis for the role of the OMON commander.
There was no need to persuade the teacher.
Puskepalis agreed.
I myself was filming there, but the shooting was somewhere near St. Petersburg - I played my small role and left, and he, having appeared on other shooting days, played his tiny one.
We didn't see each other.
Then there was the filming of the film "Guiler" - and, taking advantage of the fact that they listened to me on this set, I offered the same Sergey Puskepalis for the second main role.
And the first one was mine.
And then we could not get away from each other.
He arrived.
And we got together, as fate intended.
I saw him in the movies - surely he wouldn’t recognize me either.
***
It's like they've been friends since childhood.
My premonitions did not deceive me.
Then there was already Donbass, it was already blazing.
Sergey on the fly, not asking how anyone on the set relates to his beliefs, spoke about his adventures in Kyiv in the middle of the “Maidan”, in the winter from 2013 to 2014.
How he went from tent to tent there, filled with either besotted or possessed, and ran into a fight.
Sergey's appearance was (suddenly you did not look at him closely) more than convincing - a huge man of a bearish nature.
The kindest soul at the same time, but who knew about it on the “Maidan”.
In short, he was not killed there, but he disliked them consistently and inexorably.
Well, life went on and on.
I don’t really remember where we were, when, how many times we met – probably a lot – but, if we didn’t meet, he was always there.
It was, as you understand over the years, an exceptional case - when a person seems to be absent all the time, but he is still there.
He has never in all these years given to doubt that he will support in any situation.
Even if I am not quite right, it will come.
Especially if he is right, he will support.
Chop further, brother, crush them, press them - like this he said, suddenly appearing on the phone, then he wrote, then, maybe, sometimes he spoke in voice.
This is perhaps the only case in my life when a person from the cinema moved into life - and did not lose himself.
He wasn't open as an actor.
He was completely devoid of narcissism in an unacting way.
He knew how to laugh like a child.
He laughed very often, and frowned very rarely.
But he also knew how to frown.
He knew how to burn.
He probably knew how to cry, but I did not see it.
He never put himself above those whom he considered real men - they were people in uniform, warriors, militia, special forces, his main friends and comrades.
By all appearances, he let them know: here you are - you are doing business, and I - well, why am I playing you in a movie, it’s good if it works out well.
And finally, the main thing.
Lithuanian by father and Bulgarian by mother, he was an incredibly, absolutely, perfectly Russian person.
More than anything else, he was rooting for the Donbass.
For ours.
Nothing worried him in the same, commensurate, at least somewhat comparable degree.
***
After the death of Arsen Motor Pavlov, Alexander Vladimirovich Zakharchenko, my fellow soldier and brother Radik Graf, Sergey Puskepalis was my most beloved comrade.
The most generous in friendship.
Director Tigran Keosayan - so coincidentally - shot a completely visionary war film about the paratroopers "The Immortals" with Puskepalis in the title role.
Puskepalis plays a terminally ill person there, but who has retained the fighting position of a person who knows that he is sentenced, and does not show anyone a look.
He is asked in the film:
- How much do you have left?
He calmly replies:
- Two or three months.
The film was released in July 2022.
Looking at Puskepalis, the main character shouts:
- Why are you leaving and leaving ?!
On September 20, 2022, Sergei Vytauto Puskepalis died in a car accident on the way to Donbass.
He was carrying humanitarian cargo to his brothers.
Raising the third toast to the Motor, Givi, Batya, Vokha, Count - I raise it to Sergey as an equal in this heavenly row.
Exactly 20 years before, actor Sergei Sergeevich Bodrov died in the Karmadon Gorge.
Both managed to shoot one film as directors.
Bodrov played his first prominent role in 1992 and filmed for ten years.
Both played in films that made up the gold reserve of the cinema of the Time of Troubles.
At the first: "Prisoner of the Caucasus", "Brother", "Brother 2", "War".
In 2002, Bodrov played his last role in the film Bear Kiss.
In 2003, Puskepalis played his first film role, as if he was shaking hands, and filmed for the next almost 20 years.
“How I spent this summer”, “Siberia.
Monamur”, “Life and Fate”, “Icebreaker”.
The main, main, best roles for both are service people, military men.
09/20/2002.
09/20/2022.
In one day the country lost two brothers.
Sergei and Sergei.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.