Introduction - Biography of Stanislav Lebedev and the inception of Zavoyevatelta
Stanislav Konstantinovich Lebedev (Станислав Константинович Лебедев) was born on the 9th January 1924 in Arkangelsk to Konstantin Ivanovich Lebedev (Константин Иванович Лебедев) and Valentina Aleksandrovich Orlov (Валентина Александрович Орлов).
His father worked in the forestry industry important to the cold northern city. The young Stanislav took an early interest in the cinema, which would continue into his teenage years. His favourite genre was science fiction, and he would often write short science fiction stories. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and in 1943, aged 19, Stanislav was called to join the Red Army. He mainly saw action in the Baltic States, Belarus and East Prussia, before taking a bullet in the leg on the 22nd January 1945, ending his time in the military. He returned home to Arkangelsk and had to have several operations to remove the bullet.
After the war had finished, Stanislav went about continuing his ambitions to work in film. He started at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (now the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography) at Moscow in 1946. In the Soviet Union, it was necessary to study at the Institute in order to become a film director. Stanislav passed in *1951* and started working at the state production company Mosfilm. He was assistant director in a number of films, as well as a few productions of his own, most notably a short 30 minute science fictional 'Red Western' (Soviet films with similar themes to American westerns, but sometimes set in the steppes) called *Rassvet Zvezda (Рассвет Звезда)* meaning Dawn Star, a story of Russian farmers settling and working on another planet, which was released in 1955.
In 1957, Stanislav began collecting ideas for a feature length science fiction film. He managed to acquire a number of prints of foreign science fiction films from the United Kingdom, France and Japan. The one that caught his eye the most was the Japanese 1956 film Gojira, far better known as Godzilla, a story of a huge undersea monster, awoken by nuclear testing, and marching into Japan. An idea was born.
Stainslav continued working on his idea throughout 1957 and early 1958. Many story ideas were created, changed, adapted, combined or thrown away. The original design for the, at that point, unnamed monster was deemed by Stanislav to be 'too similar' to Godzilla. By then, Stanislav managed to gain a copy of another Japanese kaiju film, Rodan, featuring a flying monster similar to a pterodactyl. The final design was not too different in build to a stegosaurus, complete with plates on its back. It also had folding out wings. The design was intended to not be comical but imposing and somewhat realistic. Stanislav wanted to capture the serious essence of Gojira. Stanislav's friend, the artist Aleksandr Olegovich Kuznetsov (Александр Олегович Кузнетсов), sketched a far more detailed design, and also came up with a name - Zavoyevatelta (Завоевательта) a riff on the Russian word for 'Conqueror'.
The basic story idea was of three strange eggs found washed up on the Kola Peninsula. They are brought to Moscow by scientists to study, thinking they are fossilised. A few nights later, a huge monster comes ashore and begins to march towards Moscow. The eggs are stolen by one of the scientists who wants to sell them. Meanwhile, the army fights Zavoyevatelta, with little luck The scientists realise that the eggs are those of Zavoyevatelta, and as the monster begins to attack Moscow, they race to save the eggs, which are locked up. The eggs hatch and the young escape. The scientists help the young to return to Zavoyevatelta, and the monster and its offspring peacefully leave Moscow. The plot was intended to also be a fable about how humans should not exploit the natural world for their own gain.
Like the scientists did not realise the eggs were about to hatch, not even Stanislav had realised one of the most famous Soviet films was about to be born...
*Come someone check these facts and translations for me please, as I am not too knowledgable on cinema history*
This is the start of a TL about the creation of Zavoyevatelta and the rise in Soviet science fiction it causes. Stanislav Lebedev, Konstantin Lebedev, Valentina Orlov and Aleksandr Kuznetsov are all fictional and the POD could be their existence in order to lead to the main idea of this TL. The effect on world history in this TL is very minor. Glasnost and perestroika still happen in this universe, and so the does the end of the USSR in 1991. The idea of this TL came from the idea of a Soviet giant monster analogue similar to Godzilla. As a fan of early science fiction and the original Godzilla, I thought this was an interesting idea and I finally decided to make a TL. Also expect side notes talking about the events of the films from an in-universe perspective.