Andrey Platonovich Nagel

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In high society, Nagel masters the art of flirtation flawlessly. He knows how to court women in the fashion of his time: he showers them with subtle compliments, gives them expensive flowers, and takes them to fashionable restaurants and private theater premieres. Andrei possesses an innate magnetism, and his reputation as a "dangerous rebel" and adventurer only fuels women's curiosity. However, his impeccable manners have long concealed a fair amount of cynicism. Nagel views most social affairs as a light, non-committal game of boredom, a way to while away a St. Petersburg evening. He is easily smitten, but cools just as quickly, leaving broken hearts without unnecessary regrets.
Nagel is terrified that a woman will try to restrict his freedom, "domesticate" him, or confine him to the comforts of a family. As soon as the relationship begins to demand responsibility, stability, or compromise, Andrei instinctively takes a step back. He's not prepared to sacrifice his wild plans for the sake of his beloved woman's peace of mind.

For all his egotism and hot temper, Nagel possesses a strict internal code of honor. He cannot tolerate cowardice, hypocrisy, and meanness. If Andrei gives his word, he will keep it, no matter the cost. In critical situations, when his social veneer fades, he proves to be a man of action, capable of genuine compassion. He deeply, albeit secretly, cares for the misfortunes of others. The fiasco of the All-Russian race breaks his egotism precisely because his ambitions led to the suffering of another man—Ivan Ivanov. The fact that Nagel does not try to buy his way out or hide behind connections, but takes full responsibility, reveals his genuine, mature nobility. Nagel inherently dislikes stasis, rest, and routine. He vitally needs adrenaline, movement, and the feeling of being at the forefront of the era. Because of this, he often acts impulsively, following the first impulse of emotion. He lives by feelings and passions, not by cold calculation. This trait makes him vulnerable to pragmatic enemies like Gustav Liszt, but it is precisely this that allows Andrei to find strength and rise from crushing falls, when any reasonable person would have long ago admitted defeat.

Nagel's main driving force is his passion for cars. For him, the engine is more than just a means of transportation, but a symbol of the coming new century, a triumph of human thought. Andrei possesses a rare quality—an absolute, blind faith in his own rightness. When the whole world (officials, investors, friends) tells him the Russian auto industry is a utopia, he only grits his teeth harder. This obsession borders on madness: he unthinkingly mortgages and sells all his belongings, leaving himself literally penniless in an empty apartment, to finance a magazine and build a racing car. In St. Petersburg society, Nagel has long maintained a reputation as a charming cynic, a wit, and a regular at trendy restaurants. He makes friends easily, knows how to make small talk, charm officials, or put the insolent in their place with subtle irony. But behind this mask of well-being lies a profound sense of loneliness and disorientation. Andrei acutely senses that his entire social circle is a false world of empty talk, balls, and gossip, in which he feels cramped. His ostentatious cheerfulness in company is often merely an attempt to drown out an inner emptiness. As the grandson of a major publisher, Nagel is well-educated (he has a legal background) and possesses a lively, tenacious mind. He reads widely, follows world news, and sincerely believes in progress. At the same time, Andrei is incredibly stubborn and arrogant. Once he sets his mind on something, it's impossible to change his mind. This quality often borders on egocentrism: Nagel is accustomed to the world revolving around his desires. He takes criticism hard and initially perceives any refusals from officials as a personal affront to his noble honor.

Andrei looks like a typical Moscow dandy. He wears expensive, fitted three-piece suits made of English broadcloth, crisp white shirts with stiff, starched collars, silk ties, and patent leather shoes. An expensive pocket watch on a gold chain completes the look.
As his money dwindled and Nagel spent more and more time at the factory, his wardrobe rapidly "democratized." Expensive suits gave way to more practical leather jackets. White shirts were now rolled up to the elbows, collars unbuttoned, and a simple scarf replaced the silk tie to protect against dust. Stains of fuel oil, gasoline, and soot were clearly visible on his clothes.

Nagel has a well-bred, lean face with high, sharply defined cheekbones and a strong, slightly jutting chin. His appearance betrays a member of the intelligentsia, yet at the same time, he has a steely core. His expression often betrays weariness, followed by a passionate glint in his eyes.
His eyes are deep-set, dark, and incredibly penetrating. When Andrei talks about cars or looks at blueprints, his gaze literally glows with a feverish, almost maddened fire. After his fiasco at the All-Russian race, heavy dark shadows hang around his eyes, emphasizing his sleepless nights and inner emptiness.
His hair is a medium-length, dark brown, slightly curly. At the beginning of the film, it's neatly combed back with pomade, in keeping with the fashion of the early 20th century. However, as the story unfolds—on the factory floor and especially during road tests—his hairstyle becomes disheveled, unruly strands constantly falling onto his forehead, and Andrei casually brushes them back with a greasy hand. Nagel wears a neat, thin, "gentlemanly" mustache, which, by the time of his crisis and marathon preparation, gives way to a light, coarse three-day stubble, adding a touch of ruggedness to his appearance. After his fight with Bondarev, crimson abrasions and yellowing bruises linger on his left cheekbone and above his eyebrow.
He's tall, 180-186 cm tall, lean and trim. He doesn't have the massive musculature of a professional worker like Bondarev, but he has a sinewy, muscular build. He's not exactly skinny; he has a slight muscular build, though his physical strength is just less pronounced.
His movements initially have a lordly presence and a slight air of languor, but when it comes to cars, his movements become abrupt, impetuous, and swift. He can't sit still: he constantly paces, gesticulating wildly with his long, thin fingers, which are almost always stained with machine oil or printer's ink ingrained under his nails. He's about 28-31 years old.

One night, Nagel stumbles upon a fresh European newspaper sent to the editorial office. The front page features a lavish advertising poster for the upcoming First International Monte-Carlo Rally, organized under the patronage of the Prince of Monaco. The race regulations clearly state that the start lines are spread across various European cities, including St. Petersburg, and the primary criterion for victory will not be how fast or first a competitor finishes, but how far and how much further they travel.
That evening, when Nagel was returning from work, Dmitry Bondarev was sitting on his doorstep. He'd agreed to build a new car on the condition that Andrei Platonovich Nagel give him 30,000 rubles and stay out of his way. But Nagel let Dmitry into the apartment and walked through all the rooms, saying, "Take all the furniture, sell it, but unfortunately I won't give you the watch—it's a family heirloom." He spoke these words, indicating the emptiness of the apartment, which contained only the watch, a small sofa, a small closet, a fireplace, and a couple of shelves with a desk, thereby indicating that Nagel had already sold all the furniture just to move forward with his project.

Right next to a ditch, covered in sticky mud, where an overturned race car lies, Nagel, panicked, helps pull a groaning Ivan Ivanov from the wreckage of the deformed body. As paramedics arrive to take the racer away with a broken arm, the full realization of the disaster hits Nagel. At that moment, his arch-rival, the German industrialist Gustav List, is celebrating his triumph at the finish line. Under the cameras, List is ostentatiously celebrating, lighting a cigar and loudly debating with the capital's reporters about the "innate technical backwardness of the Russians, who are better off continuing to produce carts rather than dabble in the world of high speeds." Nagel tries to approach him, but is met with the disdainful glances of ministry officials, who immediately turn away from the defeated publisher. Between Nagel and engineer Dmitry Bondarev. Bondarev, enraged by his failure and the fact that the gendarmes have once again begun digging into his revolutionary student past because of the accident, lashes out at Andrei. On a rainy St. Petersburg side street near the offices of "Automobile" magazine, a furious fight breaks out between the two heroes. Bondarev shouts at Nagel that he's nothing more than a spoiled young lord squandering his grandfather's inheritance on fancy toys, while ordinary workers risk their freedom for his ambitions. Andrei, rising from the dirty pavement, doesn't fight back, admitting his guilt, which finally alienates the withdrawn engineer. Left completely alone, Nagel locks himself in his empty, sold-out St. Petersburg apartment. The room is almost bare of furniture—only blueprints scattered across the floor, old issues of his magazine, and a half-empty bottle. Sitting on the floor in the dim light, Andrei experiences a profound internal crisis. He looks at his hands, stained with oil, and at the portrait of his grandfather, the book publisher, realizing he's lost absolutely everything: his money, his reputation, his team. He's one step away from giving up.

However, towards the end of the race, at a tremendous speed for the time, the car skids off the track and into a deep ditch filled with thick, swampy mud. Ivanov desperately turns the tight steering wheel, but the wooden wheels completely lose control. The car crashes into a muddy parapet with a dull thud and falls onto its side.
The instrument panel and steering column are deformed by the impact. Ivanov's right arm is pinned between the side of the open truck bed and the hard ground. Nagel and the RBVZ mechanics are the first to reach the crash site and literally dig the groaning driver out of the sticky mud. Doctors diagnose Ivan Ivanov with a severe fracture of the wrist and forearm, which permanently bars him from participating in the race of his life. The "Russian Cucumber" is destroyed, the record is invalidated, List triumphs at the finish line, and the Russo-Baltic Plant is on the brink of complete closure due to the public fiasco.

Realizing the project needs a major publicity triumph, the team sets its sights on creating a dedicated racing car. At this point, the scenario takes a symbolic and ironic turn. By chance, an ordinary cucumber, left behind by the team during lunch, ends up right on the workshop's workbench. Glancing at its elongated, streamlined shape, the engineers are struck by a revelation.
Bondarev designed a narrow, streamlined, doorless body, unique for its time. The car was painted bright green, instantly earning it the nickname "Russian Cucumber" (model Russo-Balt C24/58).
Upon learning of the revolutionary racing car's development, Gustav List decides to take a dirty approach. He attempts to disrupt the supply of imported magnetos and spark plugs and initiates a gendarmerie investigation of Bondarev, reminding the authorities of his past participation in anti-government student riots. The team is on the brink of arrest and closure, but Nagel manages to secure permission to hold one official race to prove the viability of the "Cucumber" on a national level.

However, this initial success is overshadowed by harsh reality. When Nagel takes the car to St. Petersburg to demonstrate it to government officials and investors, they refuse to take the domestic car seriously. Manufacturers claim that Russian assembly is too expensive and unreliable compared to European equivalents. Nagel's main competitor, importer Gustav List, brings the latest German Benz cars to the capital and publicly ridicules the project, predicting Russo-Balt's imminent demise.
Later at the same exhibition, Andrei Platonovich Nagel gave his word to the king that they would assemble a racing car no worse than the enemy's for the All-Russian race that would take place in three months.

1908. Young and ambitious lawyer Andrei Nagel is madly in love with automobiles. He squanders the remains of his family fortune and sells the expensive furniture from his luxurious St. Petersburg apartment to pursue this crazy idea. Nagel spends all his money on publishing the country's first magazine, "Automobile," and is consumed with the dream of proving to the world that Russia is capable of creating its own racing car capable of beating renowned European brands. However, along the way, he encounters a wall of skepticism from government officials and major industrialists, who consider the domestic auto industry a futile endeavor.
      Fortune smiles on Nagel when he finds a sympathetic ear in the chairman of the board of the Russo-Baltic Wagon Plant in Riga, Mikhail Shidlovsky, whose company is currently languishing without major orders. A fateful encounter occurs at the plant: Nagel meets the talented but reserved engineer Dmitry Bondarev. Bondarev, who had previously unsuccessfully attempted to design aircraft, finds a new calling in automobile engines. Together with a team of enthusiasts, they begin developing and assembling the first mass-produced domestic automobile, the Russo-Balt.