After listening to your radio show on Nuclear Disarmament, I would like to bring to your attention the touching and dramatic film “The Gift to Stalin”, which is set in Kazakhstan in 1949, during a time when more than one million ethnic and religious minorities were forcefully exiled to central Asia by the former Soviet government.

The film has two significances. In 1949, Soviet government carried out a Nuclear Bomb Test for anniversary of Stalin’s 70th birthday. Many innocent people fell the victims to that nuclear test. The other significance is that the value of trust and hope never changes even during the most violent and darkest days.

“The Gift to Stalin” is multi-nationally produced . It was filmed in Kazakhstan, Russia, Poland, and Israel. The producer of the film is my father, Boris Cherdabayev, who grew up in western Kazakhstan with a lot of forcibly relocated people, who had to rebuild their lives from scratch.

“The Gift to Stalin” educates people about this little known, or mostly forgotten tragedy, and helps them remember that humanity can help overcome any tragedy.

The film has participated in more than 100 festivals and official screenings and most recently had a viewing at the Library of US Congress.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions about the film.

Kind regards,
Gulbanu Cherdabayeva