1957 Moscow, Russia
Julia Leykina
Born in 1947
First movie memories from Moscow, Russia, population 5,000,000
Interviewed on 1/26/2019
by Arthur Azvolinsky
My first movie memories were from 1st grade. It was 1956 or 1957, and I was 8 or 9 years old. It was winter, and my mom’s cousin, Lena, was visiting from Leningrad, and we wanted to show her around Moscow and spend time with her.
On a weekday, dressed in an overcoat and a hat, I skipped school and went to the theater with my grandma and Lena. It was during the day, maybe 2 or 3 pm. We lived far from center-city Moscow, where the theater was, so we took the metro to the Arbat station, and the theater was on Arbat street. The theater was right next to the Arbat station. It was called the “Khudozhestvenny Cinema” a big theater in that time (the direct translation of “khudozhestvenny” from Russian into English is “artistic”). The movie had just come out and we watched it right away.
The movie was called “Carnival Night.” It was the first Soviet musical comedy. The lead role was played by a young actress, Lyudmila Gurchenko. She was very pretty, had a good figure, and had a very pretty dress on. She was a very good singer, and today, in Russia, people still sing the songs from the movie during the New Year’s holiday. The songs are very famous Russian songs, like “5 Minutes” and “Good Mood.”
I remember the character played by Igor Ilyinsky. He was the very strict boss of the organization in the movie, and the employees wanted a joyful evening of dancing, concerts, and singing, and the boss would not allow them to have it their way and instead wanted boring, formal concerts.
My favorite moment was when a lecturer, played by a tall, thin, comedic actor, came to the concert stage very drunk to talk about stars in the night sky. In Russia, when you buy Armenian cognac, there is tag of stars from 3 to 5 indicating the quality of the cognac. And the lecturer, instead of stars in the night sky, started to talk about the stars on bottles of cognac. He said, “The best is 5 stars.” It was very, very funny. The theater died from laughter.
My grandma, Lena, and I really liked the film and were really impressed. The songs were incredible. The director was very talented and selected a very good cast.
There was an usher at the entrance to the theater who tore the tickets. We were afraid we were going to be late and did not eat anything before the movie. If you didn’t show up on time, the doors would close, the usher would leave, and no one would be let in.
The seats of the theater were hard, wooden and reclined. I think this was the first time I was ever in a theater. The theater was completely full. It was all adults, and I was the only kid my age there, as other kids were in school. I was told that I was taken to a film for adults.
In Moscow, it was not accepted to eat anything during a movie. After the film, we ate a Russian ice cream called Eskimo on a stick.
