Children of the Arbat (Russian: Дети Арбата, romanized: Deti Arbata) is a 16-part television series based on the Children of the Arbat trilogy by Anatoly Rybakov. It aired on the Channel One network in Russia in 2004.The series closely follows the plot of Rybakov's trilogy. Set in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, it tells the story of Sasha Pankratov (Yevgeny Tsyganov), a student and loyal Komsomol member from the Arbat neighborhood of Moscow who is unfairly exiled to Siberia. As his family and friends, including his love interest Varya Ivanova (Chulpan Khamatova), grapple with Sasha's sudden detention and departure, the series shows the growing fear and paranoia that gripped Moscow in the years before the murder of Sergey Kirov and the start of Stalin's Great Purge.