Shot by an unknown American tourist in the summer 1937 or 1938, this silent home movie shows a trip through the Soviet Union. It’s rare material for any number of reasons — and has been thoroughly examined by a Soviet era historian who provided these notes…
The cameraman arrives by boat to Volgograd (then named Stalingrad) and continues by train to Moscow. A part of the footage was apparently censored. Depicted are the Kropotkinskaya subway station entrance, the rarely-seen and no longer existent Arbat Produce Market, and the constructivist House on the Embankment. At the time the film was shot the Great Purge was ongoing. Therefore, considering that the KGB officials confiscated apartments in and frequently visited House on the Embankment inhabitants to take them away to never to be seen again, it’s somewhat amazing the footage of it wasn’t censored. Research into this film is complicated by the fact the entire riverside district has been demolished not once, but several times – during the industrialization, during the World War 2 and in the modern times.
Highlights:
0:00 View of the Tsaritsyn from the Volga river , near the boat pier, now the Volgograd Main River Port. Tsaritsyn was renamed in 1925 to Stalingrad, then in 1961 to Volgograd.
0:19 Possibly the semi-demolished building of the Kazeeff Clothing manufacture, owned by Mr. Georgi Zakharovitch Kazeeff or Quazzieff (d. after 1920). (As far as we know their descendants’ last known address 1929 Union Street, San Francisco, California)
0:35 Arrival pier of the river station and the riverside hotel, by the looks of it
0:39 – 0:50 Official-looking building with a usual Soviet (presumably) red-and-white slogan hoisted on top « …SSR ».
0:48-0:56 riverside houses
0:56-0:58 a GAZ-AA truck – a licensed copy of the Ford AA truck
0:58 to 1:16 continued panorama of the riverside Tsaritsyn (Volgograd)
1:20 to 1:40 Volgograd steppes and Volga Cossacks’ huts with typical thatched roofs
1:40 to A bull-drawn cart, agricultural workers ploughing and sowing, only with work animals (no tractors or other modern implements).
1:48-1:59 – this part of the film after the title card “assisted by the police” seems to indicate that the cameraman was stopped in his attempt to film in Red Square — censored !
2:00 onwards – shots of Moscow
2:07-2:12 KM-type tram, produced from 1926 to 1939, and operated until 1971, of the Kolomna Train Works, in a multi-carriage configuration
2:14 Traffic on the old Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge, before it was demolished and rebuilt in 1938, including GAZ-AA trucks, a Ford Model T ( ?). “Government Building” or the House on the Embankment can be seen in the background
2:23 – 2:41 The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. This footage is very certainly after 1932, as the writing says “Painting exhibition”
2:21-2:23 Tram “Line A” passing by. Therefore it’s very certainly after 1935 and most probably between 1937 and 1938.
2:41 – 2:53 The Kropotkinskaya Metro station entrance
2:53 to the end of the video : The Arbat Produce Market building. Built in 1932, this wooden-frame tin sheet and glass-pane-clad building had a relatively short life – after a reconstruction of 1935, which shortened the building length, it was completely demolished in 1941 by a Luftwaffe bombers. Another photo.
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