Snipers of The Soviet Union - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• A Hollywood film called Enemy at the Gates was made about Vasily Zaitsev, a Soviet sniper who fought in the Battle of Stalingrad. The plot of the movie is based on a section in the eponymous book by William Craig which fictionalizes an alleged duel between Zaitsev and a maybe fictional German sniper called Major König.

• The role of a Soviet sniper is also portrayed in the game Call of Duty: World at War which contains scenes directly taken from Enemy at the Gates. On one of the maps, an injured sniper, Viktor Reznov (who gives the player "Dmitri Petrenko" the job of sniping) runs around to tempt German snipers into opening fire, revealing their position and allowing the player to snipe them.

• In Tom Clancy's novel The Bear and the Dragon, a veteran WWII Soviet sniper uses his old sniper rifle to take out a Chinese general during a Chinese invasion of Russia.

• In David L. Robbins novel War of the Rats, the lead character, Vasily Zaitsev, is a Soviet Sniper in WWII.

• James Riordan's novel The Sniper tells the story of Tania Chernova and is based on Riordan's interviews with the subject.

• Four Steps to Death, a book written by John Wilson, portrays a Soviet sniper, Yelena Pavlova, as a main character in the Battle of Stalingrad