The Fall of the Empire (Russian: Гибель империи, romanized: Gibel' imperii) is a Russian TV miniseries in ten episodes directed by Vladimir Khotinenko, broadcast in March 2005.It is set in World War I, following Russian counterintelligence officer Sergei Pavlovich Kostin (Aleksandr Baluev), a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, who works to uncover enemy plots aided by his sidekick Ivan Karlovich Shtol'ts (Marat Basharov).