May in Minsk, Part II

The Internatsional countered with its own, hairier, stars. It screened Tayna Shimpanze (iz tsikla Zhako) (Secret of the Chimpanzee [with Jocko]).⁴ We do not have the exact date of production, but we know the Jocko films were pre-WWI. Minskers had probably seen this one before. Was there really a demand for it?

Getting recent films was obviously a problem, although they probably came into Belarus from Moscow. Many of the earlier films were either left over from before the fighting (World War I and the border/civil wars), or just after the fighting ended. Belarusian authorities knew some of the older films had been smuggled into Minsk.⁵ That could account for the numerous films shown to which we cannot match a known production. In fact, writes historian Mariana Moturnych, there was also an active business smuggling films into the entire Soviet Union. As late as 1924, writes Moturnych, the cinema newspaper Kino remarked that films regularly got into Soviet territory without information on writers, performers, or even the country of production.⁶

Almost as big a problem as the scarcity of films, according to Soviet historian Nikolai Lebedev. He called taxes on cinemas a stone around their neck.⁷ He focused on the situation in Moscow, but it seems to have equally applied in Minsk (and probably other Belarusian cities with cinemas). He showed that taxes, rents, and others cost often ended up far outreaching the income. He writes that, in 1922, Goskino calculations showed the gross income of all USSR cinemas was 27,000,000 rubles, of which 40% went to the state in taxes.⁸ He blamed the Narkomfin (People’s Commissariat of Finance) for undermining the possibility of the normal existence of commercial cinemas with unbearable taxes. As a result, he writes, “burdened by exorbitant rental fees and taxes, cinemas began to rapidly close at the end of 1923.” ⁹

On May 24, at a meeting of Prezidiuma Tsentral'nogo Ispolnitel'nogo Komiteta Belorusskoy Sotsialisticheskoy Sovetskoy Respubliki (Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Byelorussian Socialist Soviet Republic), there was a discussion regarding reducing taxes on cinemas in Belarus (To date, we have concentrated on Minsk, because that is the only place from which we have been able to get information so far). The Presidium decided to take up the issue in its June meeting.¹⁰

On May 28, the Minsk City Government wrote VUFKU (All Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Administration) about leasing the Ukrainians the Red Star, Internatsional and Kultura.

That discussion would be continued in July.

On May 30, the Red Star advertised Ellen Richter again. This time it was Noch' v Marokko (A Night in Morocco). This was part two of a three-part serial called The Adventuress of Monte Carlo.