Russia during the Time of Troubles: the Rurik dynasty had been extinguished withe the death of Ivan the Terrible's sickly son. For 15 years after this, multiple rivals attempted to seize the tsardom. For more than three centuries, the balance of power between Poland Russia had been so heavily in Russia's favor that it was unimaginable that Poland would ever subjugate their eastern neighbors; but now, Russia was greatly weakened by the internal struggles. The Poles and Swedes, Muscovy's traditional enemies, now invaded and exploited false pretenders to gain the Russian throne. Vasily Shuisky removed one of these pretenders and declared himself Tsar Vasily IV of Russia. He enjoyed little support and a council of boyars invited Polish Crown Prince Wladyslaw to become Tsar in an attempt to end the Polish invasion. However, the Polish King (also Wladyslaw) had designs on Muscovy, too. He prevented the Crown Prince from traveling to Moscow and sent troops loyal to himself to occupy the Kremlin in 1611. That same year, Russian insurrectionists started a crusade to expel the Poles. Prince Pozharsky and Kuzmin Minin, a butcher, weren't among these first insurrectionists, but they did lead the second attempt to finally rid Russia of its foreign overlords.

DVD-R is in Russian with optional English subtitles.  Approx. 124 mins.  See film sample for audio and video quality.