# Kidnapping, Caucasian Style

Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (Russian: Кавказская пленница, или Новые приключения Шурика, lit. Female Prisoner of the Caucasus or Shurik's New Adventures) is a 1967 Soviet comedy film directed by Leonid Gaidai.

## Narrator

* Shurik told us this story. He collected folklore during his vacation. Maybe this story is just a legend, but, according to Shurik, it really happened in one of the mountain regions. He did not say in which one, so as not to be unfair to other regions where exactly the same story could have happened.

## Caucasian Toasts

* Portier. My great grandfather said: "I desire to buy a house, but I don't have the means to do it. I have the means to buy a goat, but I don't desire it." So let us drink to our desires always meeting our possibilities.
* Barman. ...And when the whole flock flew south for the winter, one small but proud bird said: "Personally, I will fly right into the sun." And she began to rise higher and higher, but very soon she burned her wings and fell to the very bottom of the deepest gorge. So let's drink to the fact that none of us, no matter how high he flew, would never break away from the his team... What happened, my dear?
    Portier. What, what is it, dear?
    Shurik. (drunken, pitifully, in tears) Poor birdie!
* Barbeque master. ...And the princess, out of anger, hung herself on her own braid, because he accurately counted how many grains are in the bag, how many drops are in the sea and how many stars are in the sky. So let's drink to cybernetics!

## Portier

* A toast without wine is like a wedding night without a bride.

## Shurik

* I abducted her, and I'll return her!

## Saakhov

* As our wonderful satirist Arkady Raikin says, a woman is a friend of human!
* Now I have only two ways out of this house: either I take her to the Registrar, or she takes me to the prosecutor.

## The Pro

* It's not a lezginka dance for you, but a twist! I show you everything from the beginning. With the toe of your right foot, you crush the cigarette butt like this... hop-hop-hop-hop-hop! The second butt... the second butt you crush with the toe of your left foot... And now you crush both butts together! Hop-hop-hop!

## The Fool

* By the way, in the neighboring district, the groom kidnap a member of the Communist Party.

## The Coward

* Long live our court, the most humane court in the world! (applauses)

## Edik

* There is an epidemic in the region. Total vaccinations. FMD! Sign it!

## Nina

* (to Shurik) Traitor, vile mercenary... Judas! Scoundrel! How much were you paid? Untie me! A piece of garbage, sellout! Let me go! Bandit, trash, stupid, chameleon, rascal! Alcoholic! Miserable folklorist!

## Dialogues

* Edik. (resents his 1930s truck) Hey, cursed be the day I got behind the wheel of this vacuum cleaner!
    Shurik. Well, don't despair.
    Edik. It was not for nothing that the great and wise Abu Akhmat ibn Bey, the first driver of this car, said: “Remember, Edik...” (to Shurik) I'm Edik.
    Shurik. Sasha. (shaking hand)
    Edik. “Remember, Edik,” he said, “only Allah knows where the spark goes away from this unworthy degenerate in the glorious family of internal combustion engines! May its carburetor go dry forever and ever!”
* Shurik. Sorry, I don't drink.
    Portier. Huh, do I drink? (shows a huge bottle of wine) What is there to drink?
* Police officer. (reads the offense report) "...And he disrupted the grand opening of the Wedding Palace. Then on the chapel ruins..."
    Shurik. Excuse me... did I... ruine the chapel as well?
    Police officer. (kindly) No, that was before you, in the fourteenth century. "Then on the chapel ruins..."
    Saakhov. All this, of course, is true. It's all true, yes, yes, yes. The paper is written correctly, everything, everything is fine. So it's on the one hand, right? But there is another side of the coin. A violator is not a violator, but a major scientist, an intellectual labor person. He came to visit us, well? To collect our fairy tales, legends, if you know, toasts...
    Police officer. Toasts?!
    Saahov. Toasts, yes, toasts. And he did not calculate his strength, right? We're seeing here... an accident at work!
    Police officer. (joyfully) I have a wonderful toast! (Shurik takes a glass with a heavy sigh)
* Jabrail. Listen, how are you not ashamed? You offend the orphan. She has no one except for her uncle and aunt. Twenty five.
    Saakhov. This isn't true, yes. It is not true. I appreciate your respected niece, but there is a limit to everything, right? Eighteen.
    Jabrail. Have a conscience! You... you still don't get a goat, but a wife. And what one! Student, Komsomol member, athlete, beauty. And for all this I ask for twenty five rams. It’s even ridiculous to bargain!
    Saakhov. It's apo... apolitical reasons, I swear, honestly! You don't understand the political situation! You see life only from the window of my personal car, I swear, honestly! Twenty five rams at a moment when our district has not yet fully perform state contract for wool and meat!
    Jabrail. Well, don't confuse your personal wool with the state one!
    Saakhov. (quietly and ominously) By the way, Comrade Jabrail, I'm putted here to observe state interests. Sit down for now. Well, here's the thing. Twenty rams...
    Jabrail. Twenty five.
    Saakhov. Twenty, twenty. Rosenlev refrigerator...
    Jabrail. What?
    Saakhov. Finnish, good one. And Honorary diploma.
    Jabrail. And a free tour...
    Saakhov. ...to Siberia.
    (pause)
    Jabrail. Well, it's a deal.
    Saakhov. Well, it's a deal.
    Jabrail. So good. The groom agrees, the relatives too. But the bride...
    Saakhov. Yes, we are still poorly raising our youth, very poorly. An amazingly frivolous attitude to marriage.
    Jabrail. But who at all asks the bride? A bag on the head and... whoosh!
    Saakhov. Yes, it's right. A very correct decision. But me personally will have nothing to do with this.
    Jabrail. No, don't worry, this will be done by completely strangers.
    Saakhov. Yes. And not from our district.
    Jabrail. Well, of course.
* Coward. As they say, life is good!
    Fool. And a good life is even better.
* Jabrail. You have not lived up to the high trust placed in you!
    Pro. It's impossible to work.
    Coward. You give us unrealistic plans!
    Fool. This is voluntarism!
    Jabrail. (enraged) No obscene words in my house!
    Fool. What did I say, huh?
* Shurik. (in mental hospital) Сan I see the prosecutor?
    Chief physician. You can. Where is our prosecutor?
    Physician. In the 6th ward, where Napoleon used to be.
* Saakhov. (to Nina) I didn't expect you to come. Such a surprise for me. Excuse me, I'll change.
    Edik. Don't worry. In the morgue they will change your clothes.
    Shurik. We are here to judge you according to the law of the mountains. Because you wanted to disgrace our tribe, you will die like a vile jackal.
    Saakhov. You have no right! You will be responsible for it!
    Shurik. For your filthy skin, I will answer only to my conscience as a Jigit, to my sister's honor and to memory of my ancestors. (Nina can hardly contain her laughter)
    Saakhov. Nina, stop them. We are modern people... This is medieval savagery... Well, I broke that code, but I'm willing to admit my mistakes!
    Nina. (ominously) Mistakes must not be admitted, it must be washed away... with blood!
    Saakhov. You have no right! This is lynching! I demand to be judged according to our Soviet laws!
    Edik. Did you buy her according to Soviet laws? Or maybe, you stole her according to Soviet laws? Let's stop this useless discussion. Sister, turn up the TV louder. Let's start.
* Court secretary. All rise, the judges are coming!
    Judge. Sit down, please.
    (everyone sits down, Saakhov stands. After a conversation with the 'jigits' he was wounded to the buttocks by a salt charge)
    Judge. Sit down!
    Saakhov. (embarrassed) Thank you, I'll stand.
    Fool. Your Honor, he can't sit down!

## References

* ↑ A mockery continuation of this toast exist: "My desires finally correspond to my capabilities: I can’t do anything and I don’t want anything".
* ↑ Quotated ironically when someone is showing inappropriate sentimentality.
* ↑ In Russian, both Shurik and Sasha are diminutives for Alexander.
* ↑ This quote became a catchphrase means 'don't put all the blame on me'.
* ↑ Bride price and bride kidnapping in the USSR were punished under criminal law as "crimes constituting remnants of local customs".
* ↑ Shortly before the release of the film, in 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was removed from all his positions in government and Communist Party "for voluntarism in the leadership." The word "voluntarism" became the main political curse in the USSR.
* ↑ A reference to the Ward No. 6 short story by Anton Chekhov.
* ↑ This catchphrase is commonly used to mean "you're in big trouble"