> Very soon after we came back to Russia, more than half of our crew died. I survived because I was very young.
The entire article is amazing, it talks about ingenious mechanical solutions created on the spot, hacks to get desired effects, and a team relentlessly perusing their dream.
Incredible and well worth reading in its entirety.
This is misquoted, mistranslated or just plain made up.
It is attributed to "Calzatti", one of camermen. There are two Calzatti (Кольцатый in Russian) - father (Arkadi), born in 1905, and son (Alexander). IMDB lists the latter as a cameraman, but Russian wikipedia page on file list the father as one. Film credits have it at "A. Кольцатый", which can be either. The film is not listed in filmography of the father, so most likely it was indeed the son who was the cameraman.
Then things get muddy. They both appear to have immigrated to the US shortly after and adopted Calzetti as the last name. Then, [1] talks about "Italian camera operator Alexander Calzetti" being the part of the film's great recipe. But a 2004 documentary on creation of Soy Cuba credits Aleksandr Kaltsatyj as himself.
So that's a mess in itself.
Then there's also an interview with the principal cameraman [2] where he speaks about his work, explaining in detail how the shot was made, and he doesn't mention Calzetti even once and repeating that most of the shooting was done by the director and himself.
To top it off the only mention of the mysterious crew plague is that sentence in the GP's acsmag article, derived from a brief interview given to that magazine by Calzetti.
Long story short, I think it's safe to assume that nothing horrible actually happened to the crew upon their return home.
1. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-12-08-951208...