Why Mosfilm moved from Zhitnaya Street to Potylikha and how the tram arrived there

Mosfilm moved from Zhitnaya Street to Potylikha because its old premises could no longer accommodate its growing film production. The new site made it possible to bring shooting stages, workshops, warehouses and editing facilities together in a single complex. But the extra space came with a daily difficulty: reaching the film production centre on the outskirts was a challenge. Beyond the studio gates, transport access still had to be provided after the filming buildings had gone up.

The history of Mosfilm at Potylikha is marked by four events: the laying of the film production centre's foundations in 1927, completion of the first phase in 1930, the start of work in the new building in 1931 and the opening of the tram line in 1933. Each belongs to a different stage in the transformation of small Moscow studios into a film city.

What was the studio like before the move?

What would become Mosfilm grew out of two Moscow film production facilities. The First operated in Alexander Khanzhonkov's former studio on Zhitnaya Street, and the Third in Iosif Yermolyev's former studio on Bryansky Lane. Historical accounts of the studio date their unification to 1923, but the published order for their formal merger is dated 15 April 1924. The story of the move from Zhitnaya therefore covers only one of the early production sites.

Work on Boris Mikhin's film On Wings Aloft began in November 1923; the film was released on 30 January 1924. The studio regards this date as its birthday. The name Mosfilm was established much later: according to the official historical account, on 4 January 1936 the studio received its definitive name, Mosfilm Film Studio.

Directors with different artistic aims worked on Zhitnaya. Sergei Eisenstein filmed Strike and Battleship Potemkin, Lev Kuleshov made The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, and Abram Room made Bed and Sofa. These films show that modest premises did not mean a lack of artistic exploration. The main limitations concerned the ability to build sets, light the filming space and support several film crews at the same time.

Sources give different dates for the construction of Khanzhonkov's studio on Zhitnaya. Mosfilm's historical overview dates it to 1911, but in the RGALI collections photographs of the laying of the shooting stage's foundations and the first filming session are dated 1912. The Museum of the Defence of Sevastopol also dates the construction to 1912. According to the film studio, the original 400 square metres met the needs of a private company of its time; fiction, documentary and educational films were made there. The later overcrowding does not mean that its pre-revolutionary founders designed it badly. The scale of production and the range of work changed over two decades. The old address provides a reference point for measuring how the requirements of a film production facility evolved.

Conditions were different at Mosfilm's other predecessor. Near Bryansky railway station, Iosif Yermolyev built a summer shooting stage with movable walls and a permanent building with a laboratory. Mosfilm's historical material gives their floor areas as approximately 1,500 and 2,500 square metres respectively. It is therefore inaccurate to reduce everything the merged studio inherited to a cramped hall on Zhitnaya. Another difficulty was the scattered locations of sites and departments that needed to operate as a single production facility.

Later changes of name make this geography harder to follow. In 1930, a separate production facility on Lesnaya Street was converted for sound filmmaking; in 1932, it was merged with the Moscow studio at Potylikha. This third site matters to the chronology: the transition to large-scale production was not a single move of all specialists from one building to another. It involved organisational mergers, the construction of new buildings and changes in filming technology.

Why did the studio on Zhitnaya become too small?

Khanzhonkov's former studio had around 400 square metres of filming space and, according to Mosfilm's archival publication, work ran in three shifts. The same space had to accommodate different sets and crews. Increasing film output simply by rearranging the schedule was becoming ever more difficult.

Published on 15 September 2026, the chapters from historian Gayane Ambartsumyan's book preserve Grigori Alexandrov's recollections of the building at 27/29 Zhitnaya Street. He described a two-storey studio with a glass roof and a narrow staircase up which heavy props were carried. The glass provided daylight, but was covered with curtains during filming; the lighting equipment remained inadequate. This is an eyewitness account rather than a measured survey of the building, but it vividly conveys a practical difficulty: even getting an object onto the set took effort.

Alexandrov also recalled a scene in a village cottage being filmed by Yuri Tarich and Ivanov-Barkov. For a close-up, the cameraman Winkler ordered a heavy stove to be moved towards the Éclair camera: the camera was his own, and he was afraid of damaging it. This episode cannot be taken as standard practice for every film crew, but it shows how a shortage of available equipment affected work even inside the studio.

Ivan Pyryev recalled that, with only a few cameras and makeshift lighting equipment, the production facility turned out more than twelve silent films a year. His estimate helps convey the workload borne by the staff, but does not provide a calculation of each department's productivity. Sergei Yutkevich, who worked on Bed and Sofa in 1927, described combining the duties of a production designer and an assistant. A shortage of space went hand in hand with shortages of staff and equipment; a single recollection cannot establish that the new building alone solved all these problems.

There was another constraint. A newspaper report on the forthcoming construction, published by the film studio, described the old building as a fire risk to the wooden buildings of Zamoskvorechye. This was one of the arguments put forward by those advocating the move; the publication contains no technical assessment of the studio building’s condition. Together with the cramped premises and expanding production, this argument explains why the planners sought a large, separate site.

In the late 1920s, sets for two or three films were being built simultaneously in a single filming stage on Zhitnaya Street, while editing benches were used across several shifts. A historical article marking the film studio’s centenary notes that costume making and film printing took place in different parts of Moscow. Editing, laboratory processing and set construction each required their own time and staff; the overburdened filming stage was merely the most visible part of the problem.

This gives a more precise answer to the question of why the studio moved. The film factory needed more than additional floor space for sets. It required a sequence of rooms and departments through which a film would pass: preparation, filming, editing, film processing and print production. It was this organisation of work that the new site was intended to change.

What did they plan to build at Potylikha?

The project envisaged an entire production complex. Filming stages were to stand alongside set workshops, costume and prop stores, and equipment for filming, editing and producing distribution prints. This arrangement is described in the film studio’s historical publication on Mosfilm’s early decades. The concept addressed a specific need: to reduce film crews’ dependence on scattered, overcrowded premises.

In early 1927, a competition to design the Sovkino film factory was announced through the Moscow Architectural Society. The brief called for filming stages with movable, non-combustible partitions, allowing stages to be combined when a set required more space. This was the architects’ response to the shortage of filming space experienced at the studio on Zhitnaya Street.

Even the studio’s own publications differ on the number of competition entries. A book extract dated 24 September 2026 lists 24 designs, seven of which received prizes; an archive article from 2024 mentions 21 designs. The available texts do not explain whether the authors counted submitted entries and reviewed designs differently, so the exact number cannot be accepted without qualification. The proposal by architects E. Brokman and V. Voinov was selected for further development and subsequently underwent substantial revisions. The main building was designed according to the functional principles of Constructivism. A published description compared its floor plan to an aeroplane: the central section housed the management, filming stages occupied the wings, and editing rooms and actors’ facilities were located in another section. The comparison helped explain the building’s layout, but did not define its architectural purpose.

For outdoor filming, the client wanted a wall of the filming stage to open outwards. A pool 3.5 metres deep, with windows for underwater shots, was planned beneath the stage; movable platforms for lighting equipment were to be suspended from the overhead structure. These details describe the capabilities envisaged in the competition brief. They do not prove that the pool and the entire suspended system were completed as part of the first phase in 1931.

The design contained an inherent tension that only became apparent a few years later. A movable wall benefits silent filmmaking: the space can be enlarged, and noise from work nearby does not make its way onto the film’s soundtrack. For synchronised voice recording, that same flexibility creates a problem. The original idea of an open, easily reconfigured filming stage therefore needs to be considered alongside the studio’s efforts to adapt it for sound after construction had begun.

Why was Potylikha, on the outskirts of Moscow, chosen for the film factory?

Potylikha offered undeveloped land on which to build the future film factory. The explanatory notes to the master plan, published by Mosfilm, cited the proximity of the Moscow Ring Railway, the Setun and Moskva rivers, open views, and the possibility of delivering building materials, raw materials and equipment by rail. The planners also considered the landscape and access routes useful for future filming. These arguments do not prove that every opportunity mentioned was subsequently used.

A newspaper report on the construction described a 55-hectare site and anticipated that the film city would be fully operational as early as 1929. This timetable proved optimistic: the foundation-laying ceremony took place on 20 November 1927, the first phase was ready in 1930, and the main move took place in 1931. The gap between the plans and what actually happened is significant for the studio’s history. The timetable envisaged for the future film factory differed from when the completed buildings actually came into use.

The invitation to the foundation-laying ceremony, printed in a run of 300 copies, gave detailed directions to the site. The mere presence of these instructions is not evidence of the transport crisis that arose later. It shows that the new construction site was presented to the public as a remote location requiring a special journey.

In the project memorandum, the railway primarily addressed the delivery of heavy goods. The station was cited as an advantage for bringing in building materials and, later, raw materials and equipment. Yet proximity to a freight line did not mean a convenient journey for staff. This distinction between the studio’s logistics and an individual’s daily commute explains how the site could be considered suitable for a large complex while still presenting transport problems once it opened.

The invitation to the 1927 foundation-laying ceremony offered two routes. The first went via Smolensky Market: by tram to the market, then by bus No. 13 to Potylikha, followed by a walk of roughly ten minutes; the second involved taking tram No. 7 to the Lenin Hills and walking for about another twenty minutes through Vorobyovo. These directions appear in a historical overview of the film studio. Five years later, the newspaper referred instead to bus No. 7, whose terminus was a kilometre and a half from the studio. The numbers come from different sources and periods: the invitation describes the journey to the foundation-laying ceremony, while the 1932 report describes the daily commute of staff to a studio that had opened but was still under construction.

The newspaper’s promise in the late 1920s that the future film city could be reached from the centre in twenty minutes by car applied to someone with a car travelling in favourable traffic conditions. It did not describe the daily journey of most workers. Documents from 1932 assessed transport access differently: by public transport journey times, the distance from the stop and staff arriving late. Changing the criterion dramatically alters the assessment of the same site.

When did the film studio actually move?

The main production departments and support services were brought together at Potylikha in 1931, while the building was still being completed. According to a published Soyuzkino document, the resolution to move was dated 3 January 1931. The official opening and the first test filming in the new building took place on 9 February. This date marks the building’s entry into use, rather than the completion of construction.

An excerpt from a Mosfilm book states that only part of the planned complex had been built when operations began. An archival article on transport mentions temporary wiring and floors that had not yet been laid everywhere. Both details describe conditions in the early period, when production was already taking place alongside construction.

Grigory Alexandrov recalled that during work on Jolly Fellows in December 1933, the sets in the central stage stood exposed to the elements because the roof was unfinished. This recollection describes a single instance and provides no basis for judging the condition of the other buildings. It shows how long the transition from the official opening to fully equipped production facilities proved to be.

The main building housed four stages, administrative offices, rooms for actors and an editing department. The studio’s own publications give differing figures for Stage One — 1819 and 1858 square metres — and around 400 square metres for the filming area at the Zhitnaya studio. This comparison shows the difference between one large stage and the former working area, but does not cover all the rooms in the two buildings. The published book excerpt states that two-thirds of the complex remained unfinished when operations began. This proportion cannot be treated as a precise technical measurement: the account does not specify exactly how much of the project was taken as the whole. The evidence does, however, establish the essential point: the studio began operating years before construction was completed.

Test footage was shot at the opening on 9 February 1931, while Mosfilm’s historical overview dates the start of scheduled filming in the main building to 1932. These statements do not contradict each other when each is read in its proper context. The first dates the new building’s entry into use; the second refers to regular production after the move and the setting up of equipment.

Why did sound films force the new stages to be remodelled?

The main building was designed for silent films. When sound became part of film production in the late 1920s, the movable walls and the reinforced concrete floor shared by the stages began to hinder filming: microphones picked up footsteps, conversations and equipment being moved in adjacent spaces. An excerpt from a Mosfilm book published on 1 October 2026 links this to discussions by the production committee as early as 1930, while the studio was still being built.

The meeting discussed a separate building for sound work and alterations to the premises under construction; the second option was ultimately chosen. Various ways of isolating each of the four stages were considered, including an internal soundproof shell, but high costs and the impossibility of halting production limited the options. This was a revealing shift: the architects had sought flexible space for silent films, while its new users required acoustically separate rooms.

The technical change involved more than walls. Recording required low-noise cameras and lighting apparatus, equipment and new techniques for adding sound. In 1930, the studio took part in experiments with the Sound Compilation Programme; the historical account identifies Alexander Macheret’s Deeds and People, made here in 1932, as its first sound film. Sound production was already possible by then, but these examples do not establish how well all the stages had been prepared.

Grigori Alexandrov’s recollection of Jolly Fellows reveals the practical demands of the transition. He recalled that the orchestra, actors and choirs were all in the soundstage while musical scenes were being recorded, and a single microphone had to be moved between the performers. This is the director’s account of one particular film, rather than a description of a method required for all sound filming. It helps explain why the new film complex’s ability to operate fully depended on both equipment and the organisation of space.

The management introduced rules requiring silence, established signals during filming, and added doors and carpet runners. An archival publication reproduces an order restricting loud conversations and movement near the soundstages during synchronised sound recording. The studio dates full soundproofing, acoustic treatment and the division of all four halls by solid walls to as late as 1947–1949. The film factory that opened in 1931 therefore did not yet have the equipment or acoustics it would acquire later.

A separate sound studio for recording speech, music and other sound work opened in 1954 after a lengthy period of refinement. Sound films had been made in the main building long before 1954. The soundstages had to be modified: equipment and recording methods continued to change after filming had begun.

In 1946, a dedicated design bureau called ‘Greater Mosfilm’ was established; construction under a new brief was intended to begin in 1949. An archival publication from the studio reports that the expensive scheme, with its elaborate façade decoration, was put on hold and revised in the mid-1950s. In 1958, two blocks containing six new soundstages were built, along with a building for set-making and technical workshops. According to the studio, the expansion of the 1950s increased its floor area from 14,000 to 54,000 square metres. This growth confirms that the site allowed production to expand after the move in 1931, even as architectural and technical solutions evolved.

How did the studio’s remote location affect its work?

After the move, the staff commute became a production problem. On 6 January 1932, the newspaper Rabochaya Moskva reported that the journey to the film factory took at least two hours, while the terminus of bus No. 7 was about one and a half kilometres away. According to the same report, lateness and absence from work reached 20 per cent in some workshops. This figure applies to only part of the workforce; there is no basis for extending it to the entire staff.

The studio cites this newspaper report in its archival study of the transport issue. Its significance goes beyond the length of the delays. A soundstage could accommodate more sets and crews, but work depended on whether staff, materials and those involved in filming could arrive on time. The extra space at the new site did not automatically make the working day more manageable.

The road to the studio remained unpaved. According to the archival account, bad weather hampered the bus service, while spring floods washed out the access road. The writers Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov mocked the film workers’ journey in a satirical newspaper piece: after getting off the bus, they had to walk through a village and climb the hill to the studio buildings. The satire exaggerates the inconvenience for literary effect; newspaper reports of the distance from the bus stop and staff requests for tram tracks confirm that the problem itself existed.

After the bus journey, the uphill walk began by the bridge of the Moscow Ring Railway. Mosfilm’s historical account estimates this stretch at around twenty minutes along an unpaved road. It was inconvenient even in dry weather; when the access road was washed out, the bus might not even reach its usual terminus. The combination of public transport and an unavoidable walk explains the newspaper’s estimate of a two-hour journey without resorting to a vague reference to the ‘outskirts’.

In November 1932, the studio newspaper also called for a police post beside the road: staff complained that the journey home after dark was dangerous. This is evidence of workers’ concerns, rather than verified crime statistics for the neighbouring villages. It matters in film production, where shifts could run into the evening. Access to the film factory was about more than journey times; people needed to get home after work.

In the project memorandum, proximity to the Moskva River appeared to be an advantage of the site, while accounts of everyday life described flooding and a washed-out road as obstacles. Both assessments can be valid for different purposes. The designer was thinking about filming locations and land, while the employee was thinking about getting home. Comparing the documents in this way, rather than merely drawing a striking verbal contrast, reveals the cost of choosing Potylikha.

Who secured the tram service to Potylikha?

Studio employees campaigned for the new line, and the actress Sofya Levitina, a member of the Moscow City Council, played an important role in appeals to the city authorities. According to research into the studio’s archive, she pressed the city leadership for a solution. Film factory employees also helped lay the tracks: a dedicated team assisted the builders when labour was in short supply.

Construction of the line along Berezhkovskaya Embankment began in 1932. Newspaper reports from the time record requests to extend the service all the way to the studio, as well as complaints about delays. Initially, the aim was to get closer to Potylikha; later, it was to bring the line almost to the studio gate. This sequence explains why a tram line shown on a 1932 plan cannot be taken as evidence that the service was already running.

Mosfilm’s archive reports that a shortage of wire delayed the opening. According to recollections of long-serving staff, employees collected copper household utensils for the line. The archival account does not state how much metal was collected. The line from Bryansky Station to Potylikha, around 4.5 kilometres long, opened in 1933. Trams travelling in opposite directions could pass one another only at three passing loops along the single-track line. The publication gives no timetable, so this detail explains the layout of the route but does not provide a numerical indication of service intervals. The studio newspaper reported the launch of the tram service on 3 February that year.

The tram line improved access to the film complex, but the archival material does not allow its impact on film output to be measured. The confirmed result is more modest: employees could travel almost to the studio gate, something they had been unable to do when the film factory opened.

Among those involved was the cinematographer Mikhail Gindin. The studio’s biographical account states that he worked in film, served as a member of the Moscow City Council and took part in building the line, all at the same time. A newspaper in 1933 described him as a volunteer site foreman. His biography gives substance to the vague phrase ‘the workers secured the tram service’: behind the collective effort were people who made films and spent time organising transport to their own workplace.

Why did the tram service disappear so soon?

The tram service to Potylikha had ceased operating by the end of 1937. During construction of a major road, the section of route No. 35 from the Lenin Hills was removed, and the service to the studio was subsequently withdrawn. Newspaper reports show how the road-widening scheme displaced the tracks.

As late as May 1937, the newspaper was discussing a double-track line and an extension to Kaluzhskaya Zastava; by June, it was reporting the removal of the section near the Lenin Hills. Mosfilm’s archival publication links the change to the 1935 General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow: on several streets, tram tracks gave way to buses and trolleybuses. In the end, the planned through route never opened.

In August 1938, trolleybus No. 4 began running from Kievsky Station to the studio; Moscow’s trolleybus network had been operating since 1933. In 1939, the street was named Mosfilmovskaya. By then, employees had spent several years complaining about the journey, and the tram service had already opened and closed.

Replacing the tram with a trolleybus did not entirely resolve the practical difficulties. In the studio newspaper in September 1938, Nikolai Vigand, a craftsman in the model and props department, proposed building a shelter from old panels for those waiting for transport. His proposal shows that staff continued to work on improving their journey to work. There is no record of whether the shelter was built, so the initiative cannot be regarded as having been carried out.

The studio's historical overview also mentions roadworks: the former Kipyatka Street near Potylikha was widened and asphalted. In 1927, guests attending the foundation-laying ceremony were given directions involving a change of transport and a walk uphill; by the late 1930s, a trolleybus was running along the improved road. These documents show how access to the film factory gradually changed.

What does the history of the road add to the history of the film factory?

The history of Mosfilm at Potylikha shows that the move solved the problem of space: the designers could place filming stages and support departments close together, whereas the old studio had been too cramped for them. At the same time, they moved a substantial part of the daily work to the outskirts, where no transport connection was yet in place. Archival newspaper reports reveal both consequences without assuming that the new building began operating in a fully finished state.

The limits of this conclusion also matter. The documents confirm the dates of construction and opening, the difficulties of the journey and the launch of the tram service. They do not allow us to attribute the artistic success of particular films to the transport line or to measure its effect on the quality of filming. Potylikha's history is more accurately understood through the builders' decisions, the staff's actions and the gradual development of their workplace.

Rail freight deliveries were planned for when the site was selected; a tram service for staff arrived in 1933, two years after the building opened. Converting the filming stages for sound recording took even longer. Potylikha gave the studio room to grow, while convenient working conditions on the site were created in stages.

In the published example of a sightseeing tour of Moscow's history by car the route follows Mosfilmovskaya Street after Sparrow Hills. Driving along this street allows you to see where the new film complex was established and relate the location to the studio's move. The exact itinerary is agreed individually; entry to the film studio grounds is not listed in the programme.

Sources

1. The history of Mosfilm
2. The 1920s–1930s: the first decades of Mosfilm’s history
3. ‘Mosfilm: A National Treasure’: chapters from the book
4. Mosfilm: a national treasure! Building the new film factory at Potylikha
5. The tram to Potylikha
6. Marking the studio’s centenary. ‘Mosfilm: History. People. Secrets’ — origins and relocation
7. Celebrating the film studio’s centenary. ‘Mosfilm: History. People. Secrets’ — the 1930s
8. In its centenary year, Mosfilm continues to modernise
9. Mosfilm — a national treasure: sound in cinema
10. Cinematographer Mikhail Efimovich Gindin
11. Mosfilm’s birthday!
12. The post-war years. ‘Greater Mosfilm’
13. Materials from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art on Khanzhonkov and the film studio on Zhitnaya Street
14. Alexander Alexeyevich Khanzhonkov: material from the Sevastopol Museum
15. Moscow sightseeing tour by car: sample itinerary