Description:

A satiric take on the August 1991 attempted coup in the USSR.

This was one of the early successes of Pilot studio, and was shown many times on TV channels after it was made.

The cartoon shows members of the USSR State Committee on the State of Emergency in a negative light. At the beginning of the cartoon, someone's hand knocks on their offices to disturbing music. When the door opens, they appear as follows:

The Prime Minister of the USSR Valentin Pavlov in the cartoon wears mushrooms and apples in his hair, following the example of hedgehogs, and eats them.
The Interior Minister of the USSR Boris Pugo in the cartoon is portrayed wearing a constantly moving wig.
The face of the chairman of the USSR KGB Vladimir Kryuchkov is shown as an identikit of the faces of Felix Dzerzhinsky and Lavrenty Beria.
In trembling hands, Vice-President of the USSR Gennady Yanayev (his face not shown) holds a mug of drink, and spills it.
Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov and Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Defense Council Oleg Baklanov are depicted as holding toy tanks on a tray and grinning evilly.
President of the Association of State Enterprises and Associations of Industry, Construction, Transport and Communications of the USSR Aleksandr Tizyakov and Chairman of the Peasants' Union of the USSR Vasily Starodubtsev are holding a hammer and a sickle, respectively.

After that, the same hand points the way to the left and everyone rides in the indicated direction on top of tanks to the sounds of the song "March of Communist Brigades", only Pavlov rides in a hospital bed under a blanket and with a thermometer. Then Boris Yeltsin flushes them all down the toilet and smiles, after which the Patriotic Song of Mikhail Glinka is played (it was the anthem of Russia from 1991-2000) and the flag of Russia is shown waving.

On Yeltsin’s left hand, five fingers are clearly visible, although in reality he had lost two fingers as a child due to accidentally triggering a grenade.

At the end there is an inscription in English: "From 19 to 21 of Аugust 1991 all animators who made this film have been defending White House of Russia. Only by night on August 21 they could start working on the film."

One of the creators, Mihail Aldashin, later wrote: "...And I thought: "Let them crush me, let me die, but I will die a free man, than to live again in this filthy 'Sovok'." I have never felt a greater distaste for a government. And when everything ended happily, I wanted to somehow express my feelings. Probably, it was very naive on my part..."

Almost immediately after the defeat of the coup, Aldashin turned to the director of Russian television, Anatoly Lysenko, and suggested that he create a short cartoon about recent events. Lysenko agreed, and the two filmmakers (Aldashin and Tatarskiy) drew non-stop for two days. Yeltsin pulling the toilet handles was drawn personally by Aldashin. The cartoon was shown on television, and a review was devoted to it in the newspaper "Screen and Stage" (add-on to the journal "Soviet Culture") No. 36, 1991.