Stremer Get Competition…
and Makes Movies
Not everyone was a fan of Stremer’s cinema. The Kurjer Litewski [Lithuanian Courier] was published in Vilnius and carried a column on Minsk. A story in the Kurjer in mid-January 1908 complained that the theater, which “was supposed to dazzle the public, turned out to be exactly the same as the former ‘Illusion.’”1 This is certainly a reference to Stremer’s 1900 “Magic Lantern” establishment in Minsk, and would support the claim that the theater really was named Illusion. But it is not dispositive. The article went on to complain about scratched films and the lack of signs (possibly intertitles of the films) in Polish.
With Stremer’s apparent success in Minsk came competition. In February 1908, Cine-Phono named both a Parisian Illusion and the Electro-Biograph of Stremer in its description of programs there.2 Cine-Phono had a second, and last, mention of the Parisian Illusion the next month.3 By April, Cine-Phono referred to the Illusion.4
In June of 1908, Cine-Phono names an Electro-biograph of M. Lichodzebsky.5 We have not seen anything to indicate that this was the Parisian Illusion. We never see his name again. Cine-Phono reported that there was an Eden theater opened in May 1909 “next to Stremer."6
The competition meant more movies for Minskers to watch. The Parisian Illusion, for example, screened the French animated film, The Labors of Hercules.7
The Labors of Hercules, 1910.
Cine-Phono also reported that Minsk had two other theaters, the Illusion and the Modern.8 It is not clear whether the Illusion mentioned here is Stremer’s theater or the previously mentioned Parisian Illusion, but it probably the latter.
In January 1908, Stremer, still in the Rakovschick House, was fighting with the Minsk city council about the cost of electricity for his theater.9 In March, the Kurjer Litewski reported that Stremer had installed a gasoline engine to provide electricity for his cinema. It does not say where the engine was installed: whether it was inside or outside the building or in the theater itself.10
One of his neighbors, right next door, was Kaplan, who ran a printing house. Kaplan, too, obtained a gasoline engine. Within a year, those gasoline engines would prove disastrous.
Rakovshchick House is the three story building on the corner.
Kaplan’s Printing House is on the two story building next to it.
Miensk, Franciškanskaja-Zacharaŭskaja. Менск, Францішканская-Захараўская, 1900.
Source:www.allegro.pl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
On February 2, 1908, Cine-Phono presented a long article praising the use of gasoline engines for theaters. The article noted that engines and transformers provided the electricity that made the films an “Electro-Biograph,” meaning the projector was run by electricity, not hand cranked.
The article ended: “With the help of a transformer, with a direct current, a magnificent light and a magnificent image on the screen are achieved. The cost of the transformer quickly pays off with savings on current.”11
Generator on the left, transformer on the right.
Source: Cine Phono, No. 6, 1908, 1 Feb., p. 5.
In April 1908, the Kurjer reported that Stremer was struggling to manage the smoke emitted by the motor.12 The Kurjer reported the smoke was still a problem two months later.13
Stremer soon moved from merely showing films to making them. In the summer of 1908, his cameramen filmed the training of the Minsk Volunteer Fire Society (Минское вольное пожарное общество) (Minskoe volnoye pozharnoe obshchestvo), known as the MVPO, for 18 days. In the fall he premiered MVPO Maneuvers. On December 8, 1908, Stremer presented his new film, Excavator — The Infernal Machine Behind the Brest Railway Station. It was a reported as resounding success with the Minsk public.14 On December 15, 1908, another documentary film made by Stremer, Fire in the City of Minsk on Police Street premiered in his theater.
Minsk Free Fire Society, 1908.
Source: https://blizko.by/notes/kak-tushili-pozhary-v-minske-130-let-nazad
Film historian Semeon Ginzburg wrote that Stremer did not limit himself to Belarus:
Under the brand of R. Stremer, plots appeared on the screen that had not only local, but also all-Russian significance.15”
Semeon Ginzburg
Stremer was one of many cameramen in the Russian Empire. Film historian Ven. Vishnevsky included Stremer’s work in his Documentaries of Pre Revolutionary Russia, 1907-1916.16
Stremer and/or his representatives shot documentaries in Mitava, Kiev, Khreshchatyk, St. Petersburg, the Volga, Odessa, the Dnieper, Tiflis, Baku, Rostov-on-Don, the Caucasus, Nakhichevan, Poltava, Vilna, Sweden and many, many in Minsk.17 For 1908 and most of 1909, Richard Stremer WAS cinema in Minsk.
1 “Echa Minske” [Minsk Echo] Kurjer Litewski [Lithuanian Courier] No. 3, 4 Jan. 1908 (Orthodox calendar) and 17 Jan. 1908 (Modern calendar) p. 3.
2 Сине-Фоно (Sine-Fono) [Cine-Phono], No. 7, 15 Feb. 1908, p. 11.
3 Сине-Фоно (Sine-Fono) [Cine-Phono], No. 9, 15 Mar. 1908, p. 10.
4 Сине-Фоно (Sine-Fono) [Cine-Phono], No. 11, 15 Apr. 1908, p. 11.
5 Сине-Фоно (Sine-Fono) [Cine-Phono], No. 15, 15 Jun. 1908, p. 12.
6 Сине-Фоно (Sine-Fono) [Cine-Phono], No. 2, 15 Oct. 1909, p. 13.
7 Сине-Фоно (Sine-Fono) [Cine-Phono], No. 7, 15 Feb. 1908, p. 11.
8 Ibid.
9 “Echa Minske” [Minsk Echo] Kurjer Litewski [Lithuanian Courier] No. 25, 30 Jan. 1908 (Orthodox calendar) and 12 Feb. 1908 (Modern calendar) p. 3.
10 “Echa Minske” [Minsk Echo] Kurjer Litewski [Lithuanian Courier] No. 65, 19 Mar. 1908 (Orthodox calendar) and 1 Apr. 1908 (Modern calendar) p. 3.
11 Сине-Фоно (Sine-Fono) [Cine-Phono], No. 6, 1 Feb. 1908, p. 3.
12 “Echa Minske” [Minsk Echo] Kurjer Litewski [Lithuanian Courier] No. 101, 3 May 1908 (Orthodox calendar) and 16 May 1908 (Modern calendar) p. 3.
13 “Echa Minske” [Minsk Echo] Kurjer Litewski [Lithuanian Courier] No. 174, 31 July 1908 (Orthodox calendar) and 13 Aug. 1908 (Modern calendar) p. 3.
14 Кирик, Сергей [Kirik, Sergey]. «Во время первых показов люди в панике выбегали из зала. С чего начиналось кино в Беларуси» [“During the First Screenings, People Ran Out of the Hall in Panic: How Cinema Began in Belarus”]. 1prof.by, 24 Sept. 2021, www.1prof.by/news/vo-vremya-pervykh-pokazov-lyudi-v-panike-vybegali-iz-zala-s-chego-nachinalos-kino-v-belarusi/ Accessed 31 Jul. 2025.
15 Гинзбург, С. [Ginzburg, S.] Кинематография дореволюционной Росси [Cinematography of Pre-Revolutionary Russia]. Art Publishing House, 1963, p. 44.
16 Вишневский, Вен., [Vishnevsky, Ven.]. Документальные Фильмы Дореволюционной России 1907-1916 [Documentaries of Pre Revolutionary Russia, 1907-1916] Museum of Cinema, Moscow, 1996.
17 Vishnevsky.