Fair, horses and camels: shooting of mass scenes from the movie “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes” are taking place at the Kremlin

The pre-screening of the movie is scheduled for autumn in Kazan.

(KZN.RU, February 18, Alsu Safina). Today, a trade has opened under the walls of the Kazan Kremlin: milk, fish, bread are on the shelves. There you can buy cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and onions, medicinal herbs, and wicker baskets. The Red Army on horses and camels are in a little distance away, and a revolutionary theater organized at the Spasskaya Tower. Grotesque figures of the priest, capitalist, and kulak are set on the stage, and they are being mocked by the theater artists. At this time, carts with women, children, old people, who were brought to Kazan for sending to Siberia, are passing by. This is exactly what the atmosphere of the 30s in Kazan was seen by the creators of the movie “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes”. Today is the last day of shooting a movie in the capital of Tatarstan by the film company “Russkoe” for the channel “Russia 1”.

For several days now, the traffic is restricted on the Kremlevskaya Street, and today, in the area fr om Chernyshevsky Street to 1 May Square, pedestrians are not allowed to pass. Since the morning, preparations and shooting of movie scenes involving more than 100 people take place. In addition, there are 20 carts, 10 riding horses, camels on the set, decorations were installed. Modern lighting poles were disguised, all modern attributes were temporarily removed: road signs, state flags, which were replaced with flags of the Soviet era. The rest will be hidden during the montage.

The weather, with sleet and blizzard helped the filmmakers as well. “They extorted such weather after the last snowless days! Snow fits very well in the whole picture”, said Ilya Papernov, an executive producer of the film company “Russkoe”. A few days before the shooting of the mass scene, more than 1 ton of snow have been brought to Kremlevskaya Street. Ilya Papernov said that there were a lot of questions about the shootings, discussions together with the City Hall since November.

The executive producer believes that it is more important to create the atmosphere of that time referred to in the book and the movie than “to be perfectly historically accurate”. “Most likely, the market was not here in 1930, but all the wooden houses for fair trade were recreated from photographs of those years. Scenery and costumes were found in Moscow and Kazan museums”, said Ilya Papernov.

The shooting will be completed by the end of the month. After Kazan, the work will continue in the Laishevsky district, wh ere the scenery of the Semruk village was created on the banks of the Kama River, and in Perm. Ilya Papernov also said that Kazan citizens will be the first audience of the film “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes”. The idea to make a pre-screening in the capital of Tatarstan appeared recently and all the details are still being discussed, said the producer. In his opinion, the movie will be interesting, because the topic of dispossession, resettlement in Siberia has affected many families. “At the same time, this is a very human story. It is not about who is right and who is guilty, not about whose flag should be raised higher. It is about how a person in any conditions, during any tragedy, remains a human. I think it will be interesting”, noted Ilya Papernov.

After the mass scenes, the shooting will continue on the territory of the Kremlin. On Saturday, they were shooting in the basement of the building of the administrative places episodes with the participation of Chulpan Khamatova, Sergey Makovetsky, and Alexander Bashirov. Part of the Kazan scenes were shot last fall.