The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed

The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed
Russian DVD cover
Directed by	Stanislav Govorukhin
Written by	Vayner brothers (novel & screenplay)
Starring	Vladimir Vysotsky Vladimir Konkin Zinovy Gerdt Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
Music by	Yevgeni Gevorgyan
Cinematography	Leonid Burlaka
Edited by	Valentina Olejnik
Production company	Odessa Film Studio
Release date	1979 (1979)
Running time	359 minutes
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (Russian: Место встречи изменить нельзя, translit. Mesto vstrechi izmenit nelzya) is a 1979 Soviet five-part television miniseries directed by Stanislav Govorukhin. The series achieved the status of a cult film in the USSR, and along with Seventeen Moments of Spring became a part of popular culture with several generations of russophone TV viewers. The series stars singer-songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky in one of his final screen appearances (his death at the age of 42 came less than a year after the film's release). Soviet screen and stage legends Sergey Yursky, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Zinovy Gerdt, Yevgeniy Yevstigneyev, and Leonid Kuravlev also appear in the film.

The film was released in the West as The Age of Mercy, the title of the novel by the writing duo of Vayner Brothers (Arkadiy Vayner and Georgiy Vayner), on which the film is based.

The film is set in post-World War II Moscow. Lieutenant Vladimir Sharapov (Vladimir Konkin) is a young reconnaissance officer and a decorated war hero who has just returned from the war and is assigned to peacetime service with the famous MUR (Moscow Department of Criminal Investigations). There he becomes part of an elite detective team led by the brilliant, tough, no-nonsense Captain Gleb Zheglov (Vysotsky). The duo becomes embroiled in two seemingly separate investigations: that of the murder of young aspiring actress Larisa Gruzdeva, and the hunt for a vicious gang of armed robbers that calls itself "Black Cat" and constantly manages to evade capture.