The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed () is a 1979 Soviet five-part television miniseries directed by Stanislav Govorukhin. The series was a cult film in the USSR, and along with Seventeen Moments of Spring became a part of popular culture with several generations of Russian-speaking TV watchers. 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, after the original novel by the Vayner Brothers on which the film is based. Plot The film is set in post-WW2 Moscow. Lieutenant Vladimir Sharapov (Vladimir Konkin) is a young reconnaissance officer 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 Captain Gleb Zheglov (Vladimir Vysotsky). The duo becomes embroiled in two seemingly unrelated investigations: that of the murder of young aspiring actress Larisa Gruzdeva, and the hunt for a brazen, vicious gang of armed robbers that calls itself "The Black Cat" and constantly manages to evade capture. While suspicion in Gruzdeva's murder initially falls on her estranged husband Dr. Gruzdev (Sergey Yursky), it gradually becomes obvious that the two cases are connected, as a Black Cat mobster Fox (Aleksandr Belyavsky) is implicated in the murder. As a result of Zheglov's successful high-stakes operation to capture Fox, Sharapov inadvertently finds himself undercover at the Black Cat hideout, sparring with the gang's menacing leader, the Hunchback (Armen Dzhigarkhanyan). Analysis Much of the series revolves around the relationship between Zheglov and Sharapov. While the two become close friends and roommates, they are essentially opposites who often clash throughout the film. At the root of the conflict lies idealistic Sharapov's disagreement with Zheglov's "ends justify the means" approach to law enforcement. Zheglov, hardened and cynical from spending the war years in the rear fighting organized crime thinks that "a thief's place is in prison, and the public couldn't care less about how I put him there". To that end, Zheglov doesn't hesistate to use dubious tactics such as planting evidence to justify the arrest of a notorious pickpocket. Sharapov, on