Above all, White Sun of the Desert celebrates Russian men. Perhaps that is the secret of the film's enduring success and why it is still one of the top five bestselling DVDs in Russia. Ravaged by alcoholism and cursed with plunging life expectancy, Russian men today need reasons to feel good about themselves. Blue-eyed Comrade Sukhov fits the bill. He is the embodiment of Russian macho cool, the sort of guy who serenely lights his cigarette with a smouldering bunch of dynamite. Even in the dramatic final shoot-out on the beach, he remains laconic and unruffled.

This sangfroid appealed to Soviet cosmonauts. Bizarrely, White Sun has become a lucky talisman, ritually watched to this day before each and every launch. Even the recent space tourist Charles Simonyi had to sit through it. "Not bad for a Soviet movie," concluded the Hungarian-born Microsoft billionaire when I called him on his yacht in the Mediterranean. Georgiy Grechko, who made three Soyuz flights and trained with Yuri Gagarin, compares the film to a "tuning fork".