Having barely managed to go on television on the country on August 11, 1973, the serial film "Seventeen Moments of Spring", directed by Tatyana Lioznova, produced the effect of an exploding bomb. All Soviet spectators, having forgotten about other matters, snuggled up on their TV screens for twelve days, holding their breath, watching the heroic everyday life of scout Maxim Isaev, who was more remembered as SS Standartenfuhrer Max Otto von Stirlitz, performed by the remarkable Soviet and Russian actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov.
History of creation
Stirlitz owes his appearance on the pages of books to the writer Julian Semenov, who wrote a trilogy novel about Soviet intelligence during the Great Patriotic War. The first book, entitled "Password is not needed," was published in 1966. Over the next three years, “Major Whirlwind” followed, and, in fact, the novel “Seventeen Moments of Spring”, a film on which was soon shot on the personal initiative of the chairman of the State Security Committee, Yuri Andropov.
In the same year in which the novel itself was written, the management of the Lenfilm film studio bought the script of the same name from Julian Semenov, urgently approved it and appointed a director. Preparatory work for the filming has already begun, tests of the first applicants for the role were held. Suddenly, Tatyana Lioznova intervened in the situation, until then she managed to establish herself as a brilliant director in the movie “Three Poplars on Plyushchikha” that had just been released.
After a long time, she still managed to convince Semenov to withdraw the script from Lenfilm and sell it to the Gorky Film Studio in which she worked.
Question of location
Since the upcoming television movie was dedicated to the feat of Soviet intelligence agents who risked their lives in the den of Nazi Germany, the city of Berlin, in addition to selecting actors who reflected the vision of this story as much as possible by the director Lioznova herself, who managed to almost completely correct and supplement the entire author’s script by the start of filming, it was necessary to solve another , no less important issue. It consisted in the fact that somehow it was necessary to convey the atmosphere of Berlin, Swiss Bern and other places of front-line Europe, but at the same time to manage not to go beyond the allocated budget.
Tatyana Lioznova had to use all her wit and imagination. She came up with a solution to this issue through geographic imitations, presenting on the screen some cities and states as completely different.
As a result, there were many places where the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" was filmed. They were both abroad and within the country, and sometimes one single scene, visible to the viewer on the television screen as a whole, in fact was a whole patchwork quilt. An example is the scene of the failure of Professor Pleischner, in which he first begins his journey in the German Meissen, admires the cubs already in the Tbilisi zoo, and ends his life on the bridge of the Latvian capital Riga.
The Swiss border, which was crossed by Pastor Schlag, was in Georgia. The Berlin Zoological Museum, in which Stirlitz was expecting Bormann, was filmed in Leningrad. Filming "Seventeen Moments of Spring" in Butyrka prison easily displayed the horrors of the dungeons of the Nazi Gestapo (pictured below).
Let us dwell in more detail on the locations of the filming of this legendary film, which for forty-five years has not lost its relevance or the love of viewers.
GDR
After the end of all organizational hardships, in the spring of 1971, work on the film finally began.
The film crew, together with all the props and actors, went to the friendly German Democratic Republic, the first of the places where they shot "17 Moments of Spring". There it was planned to shoot Stirlitz’s murder of the fascist provocateur, performed by actor Lev Durov, as well as all the natural scenes of front-line Berlin.
However, the visiting commission did not release Durov from the fatherland. The reason for this was the politicity of the artist. To the question asked about what the flag of the Soviet Union looks like, Lev Durov answered:
It looks very simple: a black background, on it is a white skull and two crossed tibia. The flag is called Jolly Roger ...
His last name was immediately deleted from the lists of departing.
So, what exactly are the sights of the GDR that became the very places where they shot “17 Moments of Spring”?
There were a lot of them. First, in Germany, the views of Swiss Bern, the city visited by Professor Pleischner, whose role was played by the brilliant actor Evgeny Evstigneev, were filmed. Appearing in Bern, the professor walks along its streets and gets acquainted with the city. Viewers see old houses unusual for the Soviet eye, tiled roofs, cobblestone pavements and a city cathedral with two symmetrical belfries.
In reality, these surveys were carried out on SchlossbrĂĽcke Street in the east German city of Meissen.
The second object for filming was the Stirlitz house, which, according to the script, is located in Babelsberg, an area of ​​the city of Potsdam.
In fact, this house is located in the Pankov area, the northern part of Berlin. It was here that the Soviet intelligence lived.
Another place where they shot "17 Moments of Spring", in particular, the hospital in which the on-screen child of the radio operator Kat was born, was the real Berlin Charite University Hospital.
This hospital was founded in 1710 and is the oldest medical institution not only in Germany, but also in Europe.
"Elephant"
This place, Stirlitz’s favorite beer restaurant, is known to any television movie patriot.
In real life, "Elephant" is called Zur Letzten Instanz, which translates as "Last resort." The restaurant is not only one of the sights of Berlin, but also the oldest institution in the world, since the first mention of the building in which it is located dates back to 1561. The "Instance" itself has been reckoning since 1621.
Over the years, visitors to this restaurant have become such celebrities and historical figures as Napoleon Bonaparte, Clara Zetkin, Wilhelm Raabe, Charlie Chaplin. And in the new story, the guests of the “Instance” are Mikhail Gorbachev, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin.
We are interested in this institution, first of all, as another place where they shot "17 Moments of Spring". It was here, in the pub, bearing the name "Elephant" in the film, that Stirlitz once had a silent five-minute meeting with his wife, arranged by the Soviet foreign intelligence services.
In the same restaurant, Maxim Isaev dined with Pastor Schlag, whose role was played by the famous actor Rostislav Plyatt. True, this time the institution already had a different name - Zum groben Gottlieb, which is translated from German as "At the rude Gottlieb."
The very famous and touching meeting of Shtirlits with his wife, whose image was embodied by actress Eleanor Shashkova, was shot not in this restaurant, but in Moscow, in the pavilion of the film studio.
Gorky Film Studio
After a month of work in the GDR, the film crew returned to Moscow, almost immediately starting to work in the pavilions of the Gorky film studio specially created for the film.
By their arrival, decorators had a significant amount of work to do, recreating the scenery of the Stirlitz safe house, the corridors of the German Reich Chancellor’s office and the office of the head of the secret state police Heinrich Müller, the image of which was almost the first landmark film in the movie of actor Leonid Bronevoy. A tunic sewn by costume designers rubbed Leonid Sergeyevich’s neck from a habit, so he constantly nervously jerked his chin to the side. This movement of his was noticed by the director Lioznova and subsequently left in the picture.
Work in the pavilions lasted almost the entire summer, after which the film crew went to the Latvian SSR.
Latvia
Filming in Riga "Seventeen Moments of Spring" has become one of the most key in the picture. In the capital of Latvia, many episodes were shot that gave the viewers the atmosphere of both Berlin and Bern.
One of the attractions of the city used in the film was the Riga House with black cats, which can be seen in the photo below.
This building in the central part of the Old Town of Riga, built in 1909, was temporarily a Berlin hotel for the purpose of the film. The meeting took place between the Soviet intelligence officer Isaev and Hitler’s personal secretary Martin Borman, which, after some hesitation, was played by the Soviet author and poet Yuri Visbor.
The next object for filming was the Lutheran Church of the Cross, which is an architectural monument of the city of Riga.
This building for the needs of the film has become the church of Pastor Schlag, and its outer shell. At the same time, the pastor was engaged in repairing the organ and conducting divine services in the premises of the St. Paul's Church in Riga, the interior of which was also used in the painting.
The appearance of the Soviet intelligence officer in Bern was failed in the building of the apartment building, built in 1903 by the architect Wilhelm Ludwig Nikolaus Bokslavsem.
In the right window in the photo below there should have been a flower as a conditional signal warning about the failure of the Stirlitz safe house.
Professor Pleischner, by mistake, did not pay attention to this.
In order not to fall into the hands of the thugs of the GruppenfĂĽhrer MĂĽller, he took his life by throwing himself out of the window of the porch entrance at about the place shown in the photo below.
The episode of the death of Professor Pleischner became one of the most dramatic in the film.
Flower street
This place, whose real name sounds like Jauniel Street, has for many years become the most famous Soviet cinema street in Old Riga.
In The Seventeen Moments of Spring, she was called Blumenstrasse. In another famous film, “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,” Yauniela Street became that same Baker Street.
In fact, the Flower Street in Bern, which, according to the script, became the last refuge for the unhappy Professor Pleischner, never was and never is.
Georgia
In January 1972, filming of "Seventeen Moments of Spring" in Georgia began. The goal of the film crew’s trip was Tbilisi, in the zoo of which the episode of Professor Pleischner’s visit to the supposedly Bernese menagerie was filmed.
In the Borjomi mountains, the pastor Schlag’s passage through the Bavarian Alps was filmed , and the Bakuriani ski resort became the place where the pastor became skiing.
The main greetings from sunny Georgia in the film was that very silent scene of Shtirlitsa meeting with his wife in the cafe "Elephant", the idea of ​​which was presented to Tatyana Lioznova by one of the main consultants of "Seventeen Moments of Spring", the Georgian KGB colonel Georgy Pipia, who drew this story from a personal experience.
Moscow
Already by March, the film crew returned to Moscow. There were also many places where this film was shot.
In the very first frames of the picture you can see Stirlitz walking in the suburbs of Berlin with Frau Zaurich along the banks of a beautiful pond. In fact, this place was the former manor house Arkhangelskoye-Tyurikovo, located in the North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow.
The US special agency in Bern served as the Chertkov city estate, an eighteenth-century mansion on Butcher Street in Moscow.
Solovyov’s mansion at the intersection of Khlebny and Maly Rzhevsky lanes became the house with a safe house in which the Nazis mocked the child of the radio operator Kat.
The Riga Station in Moscow, which is an architectural monument, was involved in the picture twice.
For the first time, Riga Station was used as an image of a border station, from which Professor Pleischner departs for Swiss Bern. In the last series of the film, he already "played the role" of the railway station of the city of Bern itself, from which Stirlitz escorted the radio operator Kat to Paris.
For the hotel “Mountain Skiers”, in which a lady was pestering at Stirlitz, the cafe “Lira”, once popular among young people, was chosen, on the site of which the first McDonald's restaurant was later built in the Soviet Union (pictured below).
Instead of an afterword
From the 11th to the 24th of August 1973, the premiere of “Seventeen Moments of Spring” took place, for twelve days it attracted the attention of viewers and even sharply reduced the level of crime, according to official police reports.
The same reaction of the audience was observed in Hungary, Bulgaria, Cuba, and everywhere where this wonderful film was ever broadcast.
There is a legend according to which, after viewing this picture, the emotionless Leonid Brezhnev ordered to immediately find and award the real Shtirlits.
However, the fictional character Maxim Isaev was just a beautiful film legend about the exploit of Soviet scouts and the country experienced those distant times of the terrible war, which you should never forget ...