About the book: 2017 / The film “Operation “Happy New Year!”” was filmed in 1970, but viewers saw it under a new title “Road check” only in 1985. The reason for the “delay” is that the film truthfully showed the activities of partisan intelligence during the Second World War. The plot was based on the true story of prisoner of war Alexander Lazarev, who at the beginning of 1943 escaped from the ROA to join the partisans. Although much was not shown to the audience. For example, the fact that Lazarev played a key role in the operation to seize documents from a German intelligence school located in the village of Pechki, Pskov region in January 1944. It went down in history under the name “Operation Happy New Year.” And he died during heavy battles for the liberation of Leningrad, and not during the capture of a German train with food, as shown in the film. Journalist Vadim Andryukhin and the head of counterintelligence of the partisan brigade Georgy Pyatkin talked about what was left behind the scenes.