Series Profile: S’PARTA
| Attribute | Details |
| Title | S’parta (Russian: Sпарта) |
| Country | Russia |
| Release Date | July 9, 2018 (Channel One Russia) • Global distribution via Netflix |
| Director | Egor Baranov (Gogol, The Avatar/The Last Frontier) |
| Writer | Ilya Tilkin |
| Producers | Alexander Tsekalo, Evgeniy Nikishov |
| Genre | Mystery, Drama, Thriller |
| Seasons / Episodes | 1 Season / 8 Episodes |
| Runtime | 53 minutes per episode |
| Distributor / Platform | Sreda / Channel One Russia / Netflix |
| Lead Cast |
• Alexander Petrov (Mikhail Barkovskiy) • Artyom Tkachenko (Igor Kryukov) • Valeriya Shkirando (Anna Istomina) • Oleg Gaas (Gosha Dovzhenko) • Alisa Lozovskaya (Nastasya Istomina) • Yan Tsapnik (Vice-Principal) |
Plot Overview
When high school teacher Anna Istomina (Valeriya Shkirando) tragically falls to her death from a school window in St. Petersburg, seasoned police detective Igor Kryukov (Artyom Tkachenko) arrives to investigate whether it was suicide or murder.
Kryukov quickly senses an eerie atmosphere among the senior students, led by the enigmatic, brilliant, and manipulative high school student Mikhail Barkovskiy (Alexander Petrov). As Kryukov interrogates the students, he uncovers their obsession with “S’parta”—an unlicensed, hyper-realistic virtual reality game where rules and moral boundaries do not exist.
In S’parta, players can live out their darkest desires without real-world consequences. However, as Barkovskiy uses the game to exert psychological control over his classmates, the line between virtual reality and real-world violence dissolves, drawing Detective Kryukov into a dangerous psychological chess match.
