A Golden Age of Belarusian Cinemas.
1911-1914
Minsk
1911 to 1914 was a golden age of Belarusian cinemas and of reporting on them.
In October 1911, Cine-Phono said Minsk had four “electro-theaters”: Giant, Eden, Modern, and Illusion.1 The film, The Funeral of Leo Tolstoy, was forbidden to all of them.2
The theaters regularly changed hands. In March 1911, the Gold Brothers sold the Modern theater to Miransky. He later sold it to Frumkin. At the same time Likhodzievsky purchased the Illusion from Nathanson and Fishbein.3 By November 1912, Feldman owned it.4 Kreingel and Schnittman owned the Eden. Lifshitz and Slepian owned the Giant.5
Leo Tolstoy's funeral in Yasnaya Polyana, 1910.
Source: https://antikvaria.ru/product/pokhorony-tolstogo-v-yasnuyu-polyanu/
The Giant seemed to be the best of the Minsk cinemas:
…The auditorium of 500 seats with three wide longitudinal passages with widely spaced rows of chairs, with two entrances and three emergency side exits, is a grandiose room with a mass of air and light, impeccably arranged in relation to fire safety and convenient for visitors.6
Cine-Phono Magazine
Zakharyevskaya Street in Minsk, 1910s, author: A. Pavlovich.
Source: https://m.russiainphoto.ru/exhibitions/1989/
Later, Cine-Phono described Minsk and its four theaters:
- Giant — … A huge hall for 500 meters. One large foyer, divided by columns into several rooms, is a mass of trinitarian plants, light, air and space. …
- Eden, by Messrs. Schnittman and Stepe, is also located on Zakharyevskaya street on the second floor. The hall has 270-300 places. One huge foyer, luxuriously and artistically decorated, mirrored walls, furniture in the Rococo style, hundreds of electric light bulbs, a multitude of trinitarian plants, all this seems to be somehow fabulous, enchanted. There is a wonderful symphony orchestra under the leadership of Mr. Ginzburg. In terms of beauty, beauty and elegance, the Eden Theater can compete with any metropolitan cinematograph.7
Zakharyevskaya – Kasharskaya Street in Minsk, 1907.
Source: https://picryl.com/media/miensk-zacharaskaja-kasarskaja-mensk-zaharaskaya-kasharskaya-1907-3-856932
- Modern — Hall of 200-220 places, 1 foyer…
- Illusion is located in the center of the city opposite the city garden. The hall has 130-150 seats. It is small, modest, but tastefully furnished. … 8
After a fire at the cinema in the Russian city of Bologoye in February of 1911, a fire which cost 64 lives, a member of the Minsk City Council tried, unsuccessfully, to get the council to close all city cinemas. Cine-Phono reported that the conclusion of the inspectors would be “announced later.”9
Although the movies did not have sound on film, they always had sound. At the Modern, Smolensky sang the Yiddish song A Brivele der Mamen (A Letter to Mother) to accompany a film of the same name.10
The song A Brivele der Mamen was written by Pinsk-born Solomon Smuelwitz in 1907 after he had emigrated to the U.S. It is about the broken promise of a new American to write back to his mother in the old country.
The Giant responded with guest performers — “thirteen-year-old singer Bertha Rotenberg, electric man Alva Stonge and nine-year-old guitarists the Besenevich brothers.”11 Later, the choir of M.A. Shishkin appeared.12 At one point, the Eden trotted out “the children’s group of Lilliputians to “great success.”13
Pictures at the Minsk cinemas changed twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays.14
The term “Paris genre,” was used to describe pornographic pictures shown in Moscow and St. Petersburg, usually later in the evenings.15 Minsk was not immune to those temptations. The Giant tried to show 1300 meter long film The History of Sin, but “…the local police censorship reduced this picture by 300 meters excluding all the places that are ‘causing temptation’.” 16
In May of 1912, the production companies Sila and Pathe teamed to make the film White Flower in Minsk, which was shown in Minsk in June.17 It may be the only picture ever made in Belarus before the creation of Belgoskino.
Petropavlovskaya Street in Minsk, beginning of the XX century.
Source: https://gorodminsk.blogspot.com/2016/03/blog-post_24.html
In May of 1914 Minsk got a new theater, the Lux, opened by Sakharman on Petropavlovskaya Street. It was “furnished by N.L. Rubenchik, described as the former “master” of the Giant.
“The arrangement of the theater leaves nothing to be desired: the lower chamber, many exits, good ventilation, comfortable arrangement. The curtain is built high that which frees from the rise of the rear rows. A good orchestra is invited. The theater is designed for 300 seats, but on the first day up to 2500 tickets were sold for 5 showings." 18
1 Cine-Phono, October 15, 1911, Issue 2, p. 16.
2 Cine-Phono, January 15, 1911, Issue 8, p. 16.
3 Cine-Phono, March 1, 1911, Issue 11, p. 20.
4 Cine-Phono, November 24, 1912, Issue 5, p. 35.
5 Cine-Phono, October 15, 1911, Issue 2, p. 20.
6 Ibid.
7 Cine-Phono, May 25, 1913, Issue 18, p. 26.
8 Ibid.
9 Cine-Phono, March 15, 1911, Issue 12, p. 11.
10 Cine-Phono, October 15, 1911, Issue 2, p. 16. The article itself leaves it unclear whether the move had the same name as the song. But that there was a film called A Brivele der Mama is supported by its inclusion in Great Cinema: Catalog of Surviving Russian Feature Films, Authors: Ivanova, V; V. Mylnikova; S. Skovorodnikova; Yu. Tsivyan; R. Yangirov. Moscow 2002. PP. 101-102.
11 Cine-Phono, January 15, 1912, Issue 8, p. 19.
12 Cine-Phono, November 24, 1912, Issue 5, p. 35.
13 Cine-Phono, Ibid.
14 Cine-Phono, January 15, 1912, Issue 8, p. 19
15 Mikhailov, V. P., STORIES ABOUT THE CINEMA OF OLD MOSCOW, Materik, Moscow, 2003, pp. 237-242.
16 Cine-Phono, December 1, 1911, Issue 5, p. 25.
17 Cine-Phono, June 1, 1912,Issue 17, p. 20.
18 Cine-Phono, May 10, 1914, Issue 16, p. 42.