Trivia / Burnt by the Sun

• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The character of Mitya bears some resemblance to Nikolai Skoblin, a former White Army General who spied on his former comrades in France during the 1930s. On September 22, 1937, Skoblin and his wife delivered General Evgenii Miller of the Russian All-Military Union to the NKVD. General Miller was drugged, kidnapped, and smuggled aboard a Soviet ship in Le Havre Harbor. The ship carried General Miller to the Soviet Union where he was tortured and shot. Skoblin, however, fled to Republican Spain, which refused to extradite him for trial in France. He is believed to have been murdered in Spain on the orders of the NKVD rezident, General Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov. Skoblin's wife and handler, Nadezhda Plevitskaya, was arrested, convicted of kidnapping by a French court, and died in prison.