On March 2, a special presentation of “The Last Secret of a True Man”, a documentary film by Aleksey Nikulin, a TV presenter, historian and traveler, and a meeting with the author was held in the conference hall of Rostelekom in Kostroma.
Dozens of films have been made, hundreds of stories and interviews have been published, many books have been written about the pilot Alexey Petrovich Maresyev. “The Story of a True Man”, a book by Boris Polevoy, that brought worldwide fame to Maresyev, was published more than 130 times in the USSR and 39 times abroad.
On 4 April 1942 the Yak-1 of second lieutenant of the 588 aviation regiment Alexey Maresyev was shot down and made an emergency landing near Lake Seliger. 18 days later the exhausted pilot was found by local residents three kilometers from the village of Plav. Doctors managed to save his life, but his injuries deteriorated so badly that feet of both his legs had to be amputated. Despite his disability, Maresyev returned to his pilot career. He succeeded to control his prosthetic devices and during fights at the Kursk Bulge he shot down seven German fighters, bringing the total number of warplanes shot down to 11.
It may seem that the life of the hero is thoroughly studied, and there is nothing to add to Maresyev's biography. However, the Yak-1, on which the pilot made the emergency landing, hasn’t been found yet, though local residents, enthusiasts and professionals have been searching for it.
Most of the researchers have used facts from the book "The Story of a True Man” in their search works. But Maresyev himself repeatedly noted that there were imagined facts in the book, but had never told which ones.
In 2015 documentary film director Aleksey Nikulin started a new research. Its participants worked with archives, studied German aero photographs, conducted several expeditions, interviewed people who knew Maresyev. They recorded videos of each step and each action. As a result, the documentary film “Aleksey Maresyev: The Last Secret of a True Man” has been made. The film throws light on this story.