Where They Watched Films. Theaters in Belarus.
1908–1910
Mogilev • Polotsk
Mogilev
Mogilev, Dneprovsky avenue, on the left is the "Modern" electrotheater.
Source: https://masheka.by/history_mogilev/history_mogilev_articles/1597-istoriya-mogileva-modern-chary-i-prochie-bioskopy.html
An internet story, “History of the Film Industry in Mogilev”, quotes the newspaper North-West Region as reporting that “On August 19, 1903, sessions with a real American bioscope, the first cinematograph of that time, would be held in the city theater.”1 Unfortunately, the North-West seems to have made an error. There was no American bioscope. Bioscope was a company run by Charles Urban in Great Britain. There was an American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, founded in 1895. However, theaters were often named bioscope, which could be the source of the confusion.
Bioscope 35 mm, 1898.
Richard Ash, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Modern theater opened in 1908. "History of the Film Industry in Mogilev” goes on to say that the Chary, or Enchantment, theater opened on Dneprovsky Prospect, House No. 41, in 1909. Cine-Phono reported that, in April of 1910, the Enchantment opened during Lent of that year.2 Shenin opened the Odeon by December of 1910.3
Polotsk
Polotsk, Rynak Jezuicki, 1910.
Source:https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Połacak,_Rynak,_Jezuicki._Полацак,_Рынак,_Езуіцкі_%281910%29.jpg
The City214 website has information on the early cinemas in Polotsk, and we are grateful for the story, “Let's Go to Eden, or How and Where Movies Were Watched in Polotsk at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century,” published on the site that provides the following information.
1906 was when the first cinema opened in Polotsk. We don’t know the name, but we know it was on Verkhne-Pokrovskaya Street, which is now part of Francysk Skaryna Avenue. The story also tells us that it was “a small hall with simple wooden benches, a seat on which cost 5 kopecks,” which was one third the price of a dozen eggs. If you wanted to stand, it cost only 3 kopecks.4
A year later, in 1907, the Lotus opened. It shared the building used by our first, unnamed, cinema, but occupied the second floor and had room for 100 watchers. To wrap up the history on these early cinemas, the story tells us that the Lotus showed films that starred the French performer André Deed and the Danish comedians known in Russia as Pat and Patachon.5
Danish comedians Pat and Patachon.
Source: https://www.abebooks.com/paper-collectibles/Pat-Patachon/860196538/bd
In 1909, the Lotus closed. But when a window closes, sometimes a door opens. The Eden cinema opened on Vitebskaya Street, which is now an alley off of Skaryna Avenue. This was an even bigger theater: there was room for 150 patrons to sit in front of the screen. For a discount, you could sit behind it and watch the movie in reverse.6
There were no doubt more theaters in the area that comprises today’s Belarus. But these are the only records we have found…so far. We think it shows the tremendous hunger of Belarusians for entertainment, amusement, relief from everyday sorrows, and to see the newest art form.
They did not just show films, and the films they showed, even if they did have today’s sound-on-film technology, were anything but “silent.”
By 1907, when Stremer made his long-owned theater into a home for the movies, the age of rooms and buildings converted and set aside for cinema had arrived. Next up were purpose built theaters in Belarus.
We know that the audiences at the Eden theater got a lot of entertainment for their kopecks. After the film, performers would come out on stage. At the Modern, they got a one-man band.7 In Gomel, they got French dancers. It could get more bizarre, according to Likhachev.
Attraction numbers for cinematographic theaters!
Free from November 10. Live Phenomena
1.The tattooed lady is American.
2.Giant 17 year old weighing about 13 poods.8
3.Liliput Hummingbird weighing 1 pood.
4.Live boa snakes (Boa-constructors)
There are posters for them together
Address for information until November 10: Vitebsk city
Exhibition of Living Phenomena
S. Braginsky.!!!
I send ads on request !!! " 9
Note that Braginsky is writing from Vitebsk. Whoever said Belrusians don’t know a good show when they see one?
1 “History of the Film Industry in Mogilev,” https://mogilevkino.by/about-us/istoriya-kinootrasli-v-g-mogileve Accessed March 8, 2025.
2 Cine-Phono, April 1, 1910, Issue 13, p.11.
3 Cine-Phono, December 1, 1910, Issue 5, p. 20.
4 “Let's Go to Eden, or How and Where Movies Were Watched in Polotsk at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century.” October 12, 2017. https://gorod214.by/new/354. Accessed March 10, 2025.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Kirik, Sergey During The First Screenings, People Ran Out Of The Theater In Panic. How Cinema Began In Belarus September 24, 202. https://1prof.by/news/v-mire/vo-vremya-pervyh-pokazov-ljudi-v-panike-vybegali-iz-zala-s-chego-nachinalos-kino-v-belarusi
8 A pood is about 36 pounds. Therefore, this 17 year old would weigh about 614 pounds.
9 Likhachev, Boris. “Theory and History of Cinema.” Academia, Leningrad, 1927, p. 28. The ad was published in Cine-Phono, October 15, 1908, Issue 2, p. 17.