The scenery for the movie based on Boris Savinkov’s novel "The Horse is Pale": Moscow of the early 20th century - low houses, churches, palaces, restaurants, cobbled streets ...

Passing the gallery

Reporting: Yury Smirnov

Materials prepared: Pavel Portnov

A photo: Karen Manko, Oleg Parfenov

Text: Julia Sakharova

Magazine: Na (80) 2004

Karen Shakhnazarov makes a movie based on the autobiographical novel of the famous Russian terrorist, Social Revolutionary, writer Boris Savinkov "Pale Horse". The working title of the painting was the same. Recently it was decided to change it to "Horseman named Death" Georges-Savinkov (played by Andrei Panin) and other heroes live in emphatically realistic scenery. Production designer Lyudmila Kusakova surprisingly reliably portrayed Moscow at the beginning of the twentieth century: low houses, churches, palaces, restaurants, cobbled streets ... On the territory of Mosfilm 3000 square meters were built. m scenery. As the film director Karen Shakhnazarov told Salon magazine, the workers built more than 40 houses in three and a half months. Including almost real - wooden, with gypsum-lined facades, suitable for both exterior and interior shooting. They even erected the wall of the Bolshoi Theater (!). Part of the material was filmed in the pavilion, using ordinary fondus shields as a structural basis. As for the houses built, several of them may later be used in another film. (It turns out that movie stars are not only actors, but also scenery.) This is understandable: the houses of old Moscow in this picture are executed by the artist with great feeling. And although the title has the word "death", but in the movie there will be explosions with a sad outcome, large-scale structures, interiors and decoration details tell a different story. About the unhurried, full of happy events and pleasant little things of life. In this we are convinced by the Viennese chairs and crispy tablecloths, generous illumination and delicious food, courteous men and beautiful women. The visual row is supported by an associative one: a strong ruble, a high gross income, and others that we associate with the concept of "Russia before 1913". But - "a pale horse appeared ... and hell followed him." These words from the Revelation of John the Theologian, a century after the terrorist Georges quoted them in his diary, ceased to be only an obscure prophecy ... So, “rewind the tape back” and return to old Russia, something like a lost paradise.