Reading comments I am glad to see that 90 percent of them are speaking about this serial in superlatives. Nothing better could be done in Brezhnev Era but in this context I am not underlining that fact like an obstacle. Russian creativity was always able to overrun political circumstances. I am posting this comment to point out one of the most touching and best acted scenes in entire motion-picture history. Character acted by Tikhonov is Soviet spy enduring 17 years in Nazi-surroundings. Bosses from Moscow Centre know in what kind of psychological pressure he was and want to help him in in some way. NKVD arranges meeting between Stierlitz and his real Soviet wife. They met in one restaurant somewhere in Third Reich. They did not see each other for years but due to security reasons and keeping Stierlitz's under cover job, man and woman must not talk, must not show that they even know each other. They are permitted just to look each other for couple of minutes. Tikhonov made acting bravura: extremely high emotional suffering suppressed by duty. He did not show he knows the lady. Nobody in German restaurant noticed nothing but TV audience understood his pain.