The premiere screening of the documentary «Citadel» about the defender of the Brest fortress Kasym Zharmenov took place in Belarus

Minsk, June 24, 2026 – On the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, on June 21 and 23 the Kazakh Embassy in Belarus organized the premiere screening of the feature-length documentary «Citadel», shot in 2025 by the famous Russian director Vadim Vitovtsev, at the Pobeda Cinema in Minsk and the Belarus Cinema in Brest.

The film tells about the journey to the Brest Hero-fortress of the modern residents of Kazakhstan, the grandson and great-grandson of Kasym Zharmenov, following in the footsteps of his heroic ancestor, who, along with other defenders of the citadel, took the first battle on June 22, 1941, and subsequently went through all the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. In 1944, after a successful escape, he joined the partisan movement in Czechoslovakia. In 1946, Kasym Zharmenov returned to Shymkent and became a teacher.

In Minsk, a meeting was held with the creators of the film «Citadel» – the author of the project, the general director of the film company «Skyfest» Alexei Nikulin and the producer of the film Alexander Morev, who shared information about the idea of making the film, filming in Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus. According to A.Nikulin, the name «Citadel» has a double meaning – fortress and family. The film combines the theme of preserving the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War and the eternal problem of mutual understanding between generations – «fathers and children». The word «Citadel» in the title has a double meaning: it is the Brest fortress itself and the future family that the hero of the film defended in June 1941.

Before the screening of the film, the audience was presented with a music video with the song «Immortal Regiment» performed by the famous Kazakh singer Marie Anuar (Nargiz Zholymbetova).

After watching the film, meetings were held in Minsk and Brest with Laila Akhmetova, a professor at Al–Farabi Kazakh National University, who has been searching for Kazakhstani soldiers participating in the defense of the Brest Fortress for 57 years. Thanks to the enthusiasm and selfless work of Laila Akhmetova, thousands of Kazakh families had the opportunity to learn about the fate of their heroic ancestors. Since 2011, she has been constantly visiting the Brest Hero-fortress and working in its archives.

The film «Citadel» has a powerful emotional and semantic load, touches on universal and very relevant universal human values. Earlier, the premiere of the film took place in Kazakhstan and Russia.

The premiere screenings of the documentary «Citadel» in Minsk and Brest provoked a deep response and keen interest among the Belarusian audience.