Metravel city quest

Minsk on Camera: The City That Played Moscow

City Minsk: free walking route “on Camera: The City That Played Moscow” along the sights. 8 points. Approximately 2 h. Quests and legends - straight from your

Minsk has a secret profession: it acts in films. Most often in someone else’s role. Its avenue has played the Moscow of the 1950s, its streets have played cities that no longer exist, its courtyards have played somebody’s childhood.

Director Valery Todorovsky, who shot “Hipsters” (Stilyagi) here, explained it simply: Minsk is a very convenient city for filmmaking. The centre, rebuilt after the war in the Stalinist Empire style, is a ready-made set for any mid-20th century setting. And the authorities once even closed the country’s main avenue for a shoot.

Your task is to follow in the footsteps of the film crews and look at a familiar city through a cinematographer’s eyes: what earned these places a spot in the frame?

The route is about three kilometres: from Oktyabrskaya through the centre to the Svisloch embankment. There is a bakery-café along the way. Action!

What is on the route

The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.

  1. 1. Take One: Oktyabrskaya — 25 Oktyabrskaya Street

    This industrial street was filmed twice — and both times by Valery Todorovsky. In the early 2000s, an abandoned building of an old distillery at No.

  2. 2. A Museum in the Scene — National Art Museum, 20 Lenina Street

    Head north-west, towards the centre, to the stately columned building on Lenina Street. This is the National Art Museum (1957, architect Mikhail Baklanov) — the country’s main picture gallery.

  3. 3. “Cocktail Hall” on Broadway — GUM, 21 Independence Avenue

    Here it is, the main film set of “Hipsters”. The Minsk GUM department store (1951) played Moscow’s “Cocktail Hall” — the legendary place where the stilyagi hung out — and the pavement by its shop windows became “Broadway”, where the characters strolled in colourful suits.

  4. 4. A Break on Set (Optional) — Café-bakery “Пчёлы” (Bees)

    A block from GUM there is a bakery-café: coffee, fresh pastries and tables where it is easy to sit out a “shift”. On a film set this is called a “lunch break” — sacred time that is not cancelled even for a brilliant take.

  5. 5. A Cinema Playing a Cinema — Pobeda Cinema (“Победа”), 20 Internatsionalnaya Street

    A rare case of honest casting: in the series “Red Queen” (2015) — the story of Regina Zbarskaya, the first Soviet supermodel — Minsk’s Pobeda cinema played... a cinema. Pobeda is a Stalin-era post-war movie theatre with a severe façade, one of the oldest working cinemas in the city.

  6. 6. A Hotel for the Premiere — Hotel Europe (“Европа”), 28 Internatsionalnaya Street

    The snow-white Hotel Europe on the corner is a recreated legend: a hotel of the same name stood here even before the revolution and was considered the most luxurious in the city, but was destroyed in the war. In the 2000s it was rebuilt anew, inspired by the original.

  7. 7. The Town Hall in Close-Up — Minsk Town Hall, Freedom Square

    The town hall is another star of “Fedya”: the cinematographer shot its white tower as a symbol of old Minsk. A precise choice: the town hall has been the heart of city self-government since the 16th century, when Minsk received Magdeburg rights.

  8. 8. The Final Shot by the River — Fragment of the façade of Minsk’s first power station, Svisloch embankment

    The finale is by the water. In 1965 the cinematographer Yury Marukhin shot Richard Viktorov’s black-and-white film “Lyubimaya” (“The Beloved”) here: the Svisloch embankment and the building of the old city power station got into the frame.

Where to go next

This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.

Quests in nearby cities

Travels: Minsk

Traveller articles about this city will help round out the walk.

All city quests