Those modern Russian writers who did not leave their homeland to the mercy of enemies, who remain with their people where their people, fortunately, exist – such writers are encouraged with adaptations. The renowned émigrés Akunin, Bykov, and Glukhovsky are not only banned from being adapted but even from being published in their homeland. On the other hand, their colleagues, who have not been caught in the gentle nets of Mrs. Chuzhbina, see their own heroes portrayed by the leading Russian movie stars: Evgeny Tsyganov, Nikita Efremov, Alexander Petrov. In just the last three years, full-length films "1993", "Aviator", and the series "The Librarian" have been released, based on the older novels of Sergei Shargunov, Evgeny Vodolazkin, and Mikhail Elizarov, respectively. Now this series continues with the adaptation of the debut text of another critic's favorite from the 2000s – Andrei Rubanov. The hour-and-a-half-long "Kommersant" by the debutant director brothers Kravchuk is based on Rubanov's prison autobiographical book "Plant It, and It Will Grow." The main character is played by Alexander Petrov, while the one watching in the "Matrosskaya Tishina" prison is the rapper Husky, known, like Rubanov, for his patriotic stance. ## Change of Cultural Authority In general, modern Russian adaptations give reason to reflect on how the time of debut influences a writer's beliefs. Most of the most notable prose writers who began in the last century (except for Pelevin, about whom nothing is ever really known) are now abroad and on blacklists – both foreign agent and extremist: Sorokin, Ulitskaya, Akunin, Bykov. Meanwhile, those who published their first book in our millennium mostly remained in Russia, and many have fallen under Western sanctions. Just after the Millennium, in a country that had gorged itself on anti-communism, postmodernism, and moral relativism during the "wild" decade, a fashion for realists and leftists began. Exotic young frontiers, mostly of provincial origin and with illiberal views, began to be welcomed in salons and at premium banquets: Elizarov, Shargunov, Prilepin. They were endearing to the then-bored liberal elite with their informality and nonconformity. But twenty years will pass, and the lion's share of the former elite will be marginalized in emigration, while the once amusing eccentrics will bronze in the establishment and start signing contracts for adaptations. ## "Plant It, and It Will Grow" Andrei Rubanov, being closer in age to Bykov than to Prilepin, belongs by all other signs to that very literary crop of the 2000s: born beyond the Moscow Ring Road (in a village in the Moscow region), he came to bohemia from the outside (from business), had exotic experience (served time in prison, worked as a press secretary for the rulers of Maskhad Chechnya), and described this experience in a traditional manner. He was friends with Prilepin and entered literature in the same way. One debuted by recounting his front-line impressions, the other – his prison experiences.  Later, having become famous as the "modern Shalamov," Rubanov wrote a biographical essay about the real Shalamov – but it was not politics that brought him to despair, but commerce. Under arrest, the future writer, then a clandestine banker (as he himself certifies the hero of his memoirs), found himself in 1996 on charges of fraud – a typical story from that decade. A typical money-laundering business, a typical "setup," of which "merchant Andryukha" from "Plant It, and It Will Grow" became a victim – a typical character of legendary times, who in an instant exchanged a Moscow office for a cell in "Lefortovo" (and later in "Matrosskaya"), and a thick roll of easy dollars for a prison "dacha." ## Cinema and Book However, despite the ordinariness of his plot trajectory, it is precisely the hero, who is also the narrator, that prevents Rubanov's book from getting lost even against the backdrop of the vast corpus of Russian prison prose. A misanthrope and idealist, an egocentric capable of self-irony and not averse to pathos, reflective, mocking, instructive, somewhere like Limонов, somewhere like Jack London (and not once like Shalamov), he occupies in the book no less space than the colorful and detailed pictures of the intimate life. So, the everyday life in the adaptation remained, but the hero disappeared. In "Kommersant," there is plenty of picturesque and eerie texture: an overcrowded common "cell," sweaty bodies with crooked tattoos, gruel with cockroaches. Extreme conditions, harsh natures. But for Rubanov's book hero, this served as a reason for self-analysis and character building – overcoming circumstances and himself, he did not move towards a pre-known finish and did not receive any prizes in the end. Not so for Petrov's movie hero with the Kravchuk brothers: for him, the criminal entanglement and prison are an obstacle course that must be overcome to earn a deserved reward (the saccharine didactic finale of the film was not only absent in the novel but was fundamentally impossible). Rubanov's merchant evoked complex and diverse emotions in the reader – from irritation to sympathy. The Kravchuk merchant is a one-dimensional, inherently positive character for whom the audience is supposed to root by default. But these are the times we live in – not conducive to ambiguities. Nowadays, it must be immediately clear who is right and how they will be rewarded for it.