Richard Eduardovich Stremer — The First Film Magnate in Belarus
Richard Eduardovich Stremer is considered to be the father of Belarusian cinema. He gets that name because he opened the first permanent movie theater in Minsk. But a lot happened before that.
The earliest records we could find of Stremer predate his cinema days. They show him managing a St. Petersburg bowling alley in 1895 and 1896.1 In 1896, he went to the fair at Nizhny Novgorod and purchased a Cinématographe.2 In the words of historian A. Yu. Pilyugin, Stremer purchased an “apparatus” to open a theater in Rostov-on-Don. But shortly after he did, writes Pilyugin, the Lumière Brothers company arrived in town. Stremer, believing he could not compete, decided to leave.3
Nizhny Novgorod, view of the Main Fair House
.
Source: By Maxim Petrovich Dmitriev http://chronograph.livejournal.com/180282.html
Public Domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45650336
Russian film historian Boris Likachev writes that, after the All Russia Industrial Fair at Nizhny-Novgorod in 1896, cinema spread far and wide throughout Imperial Russia. That included many traveling projectionists.
Boris Likhachev
As you can see, Richard Stremer was one of those traveling projectionists.5 (Note the name Bystritsky, too. We will hear from two brothers with that name later.) That probably came about after the Lumières pushed him out of Rostov-on-Don. Then, in 1900 he landed in the largest city in in Belarusian territory, Minsk.6
Belarusian reporter Vladimir Volozhinsky writes that in Minsk Stremer rented an empty room in the Rakovshchik house on Zakharyevskaya Street (now Independence Prospect).7 At first, it was just a "Magic Lantern" show, in which a powerful lamp directed light through slides to project a still picture onto a wall. Stremer probably also showed moving pictures. In any event, he was soon back on the road with a projector. According to Pilyugin, Stremer was in St. Petersburg in 1902, in Kharkov in 1904 and Moscow and Kiev in 1905 to show films.8 N.V. Starikov, who wrote a paper on early movie theater owners in Rostov-on-Don, says that Stremer opened a “permanent cinema” in Rostov in 1904.9 Stremer was also in Pyatigorsk in 1907.10
Minsk, Zakharyevskaya street, end of the XIX century.
Source: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Захарьевская_улица_(Минск)
In 1907, according to Volzhinsky, Stremer was back in Minsk. He returned to the Rakovschick House, where he had his “Magic Lantern” show seven years earlier. This time, he opened a permanent cinema, the first in Minsk.11 On December 1, 1907 Cine-Phono reported the opening of the theater in Minsk, calling it the Illusion.12 The Kurjer Litewski in Vilna (modern day Vilnius), reported the same, also using term “illusion.”13 We think they used the term “illusion” to mean it was a moving picture establishment. At least as early as 1907, The Moving Picture World wrote about projector that it was amazing that “so complex a device, producing so life-like an illusion of animated motion (our italics, BFF), has been developed within a few years.14 Film Historian Tom Gunning writes that cinema seems a way of presenting a series of views to an audience, “fascinating because of their illusory power.”15
Minsk 1903 M. Epstein, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: https://garystockbridge617.getarchive.net/media/minsk-m-epstein-aa7b00
In his advertisements in other cities, Stremer either used his own name, or called the theater his “Electro-Biograph.” This term merely told prospective audience members that the projector was run by electricity and the reels were not turned by a hand crank. But we have seen no records where he advertised his own theater as the Illusion.
On March 1, 1908, Cine-Phono used Stremer’s term and referred to his theater as the Electro-biograph. In late 1908, in an ad in Cine-Phono, Stremer referred to his theater as the Electro-Biograph. In that same ad, Stremer described himself as a film distributor and seller with “thousands of meters” of film.15
Stremer clearly believed it was his name that drew the audience. Take a look at this March 20, 1909 ad in the newspaper Minsk Echo.
Minsk Echo, March 20, 1909.
By 1909 Stremer had theaters in the area that makes up today’s Belarus in the cities of Minsk, Gomel, and Mogilev.16 Stremer, his wife, and the Gomel theater were named in the story “The Whirlwind” by L.V. Miranova in her collection of stories, Angels Played the Harps. In that story, the main character goes to the Illusion movie theater in Gomel and watches the performer Miss Volta, who appears before the audience in front of her and in front of a Tesla coil (probably) sending out lightning bolts behind her.17
American film historian Denise Youngblood writes that a real Miss Volta astounded the audience by channeling electricity through her fingertips to light lamps and cigars. 18
New World Attraction Number!
Original! All Competitors! Original!
For the first time in Russia.
Miss Lucia Volta is 18 years old.
Works at a voltage of over 500,000 volts: thanks to which she carries out amazing experiments such as from her hands, legs, back, lamps, light up, torches, cigars, etc.
We live in a world of electricity and therefore electrical miracles are not fairy tales.
Foreign and Russian certificates of the Imperial Technical Societies serve as proof of the above.
These sessions are served by the city current and are possible from any stage.
For detailed information, please contact T.E.Tenzel,
Bioscope G.K. Zailer, Ekaterinoslav 18
Miss Volta.
A living electric battery.
1 Адресная книга города С.-Петербурга на 1895 г.: [4-й г. изд.]. Дополнение [Address book of the city of St. Petersburg for 1895: [4th ed.]]. Supplement) Поиск по архивам [Search in Archives] https://yandex.ru/archive/catalog/33c1ec89-bf2d-42de-8c56-a73ea6c8e1f0/712?snippet=Садовая Accessed 13 Oct. 2025.
Адресная книга города С.-Петербурга на 1896 г.: [5-й г. изд.] [Address book of the city of St. Petersburg for 1896: [5th ed.]] Поиск по архивам [Search in Archives] https://yandex.ru/archive/catalog/85b0c7f0-78b5-41a8-8b93-3f1efa322228/792?snippet=Садовая Accessed 13 Oct. 2025.
2 Гинзбург С. [Ginzburg, S.] Кинематография доререволюционной России [Cinematography of Pre-Revolutionary Russia]. Art Publishing House, 1963, p. 17.
3 Пилюгин, А. Ю. [Pilugin, A. Yu.] “Рихард Штремер — Человек, Открывший Ростовцам Синематограф” [Richard Stremer — The Man Who Opened Cinematography to Rostovites]. Ростовский областной музей краеведения [Rostov Regional Museum of Local Lore], 2018, p. 1. https://www.academia.edu/36912293/Рихард_Штремер_человек_открывший_ростовцам_синематограф
4 Лихачев, Борис С. [Likachev, Boris S.]. Кино в России (1896–1926) (Kino v Rossii (1896–1926) [Cinema in Russia, 1896–1926]. Academia, 1927, p. 24.
5 Likachev, Boris S. p. 24.
6 Арефьев Олег Николаевич [Arefiev Oleg Nikolaevich]. Топография Минска в XIX – Начале XX Вв. (Дипломная работа) [Topography of Minsk in the XIX — Early XX Centuries (Diploma Thesis)] Белорусский Государственный Университет [Belarusian State University] 2006, p. 37, citing Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской империи, 1897 г. — [The first general census of the Russian Empire, 1897.] СПб., 1904 (St. Petersburg, 1904) Vol 22, p. 44.
7 Воложинский, Владимир [Volozhinsky, Vladimir], «Где в Минске был первый кинотеатр и о чем были первые минские фильмы?» [Where Was the First Cinema in Minsk and What Were the First Minsk Films About?], Tut.by, 17 Apr. 2013. Archived at Internet Archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20180401172506/https://news.tut.by/culture/344182.html Accessed 31 July 2025.
8 Pilyugin.
9 Стариков, Н.В [Starikov N.V.]. Электробиографы Ростова начала XX века: техника и люди [Electrobiographers of Rostov at the Beginning of the XX Century: Technology and People]. Engineering News of the Don. http://www.ivdon.ru/uploads/article/pdf/IVD_7_Starikov.pdf_2268.pdf Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.
10 “Электробиограф при Ново-Казенной гостинице” [Electro-biograph at the New Kazenaya Hotel] Топонимика Пятигорска [Toponomy of Piyatogorsk]. http://lib.kmv.ru/projects/toponim/toponimika.php?rub=78 Accessed 14 July 2025
11 Volozhinsky.
12 Сине-Фоно (Sine-Fono) [Cine-Phono], No. 3, 07 Dec. 1907, p. 11.
13 “Echa minskie” [Echoes of Minsk]. Kurjer Litewski [Lithuanian Courier] 1908-01-04 (17) No. 3, p. 3 (Crispa).
14 Evolution of the Moving Picture, The Moving Picture World, Vol. 1, No. 18, 6 Jul. 1907, p. 279.
15 Gunning, Tom. “The Cinema of Attraction[s]: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde”. Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, edited by Thomas Elsaesser, British Film Institute, 1990, pp. 56-62.
16 “Кинематография” [Cinematography]. Могилевский губернский журнал «Ведомости» [Mogilev Provincial Journal "News"]. 20 Mar. 1909, p. 13.
17 Миранова, Л.В. [Miranova, L.] “Вихрь” (Vikhr) ["The Whirlwind”] На арфах играли ангелы [Angels Played the Harps]. Modern 2006.
18 Youngblood, Denise J. The Magic Mirror. Moviemaking in Russia, 1908-1918. The University of Wisconsin Press 1999 p. 65, citing an advertisement Cine-Phono No. 8, 15 Jan. 1910.