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Brigada: The 1990s Moscow of Sasha Bely

Brigada is a crime series about four Moscow friends, Sasha Bely, Kosmos, Pchyola and Fil, who swear loyalty to each other on Sparrow Hills at dawn in 1989. Its plot visits the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment skyscraper and the Uzbekistan restaurant on Neglinnaya Street, and the series was written at Mosfilm and partly filmed in Taldom.

Contains major story spoilers.

Mapped by Mapped Chronicles editors5 locationsCountries: RussiaCities: MoscowGPX

#brigada#russian-series#moscow#crime-drama#mosfilm#1990s

Timeline & locations

What do the location labels mean?
Exact
The pin marks the actual place where it happened or was filmed.
Approximate
The right area — a town, park or district — but not a precise spot.

  1. The first part of the story ends here. At dawn the four friends stand on top of Sparrow Hills, overlooking the panorama of Moscow, and Sasha swears to his friends that he will always remain loyal to them and to the Brigada. The hill is one of the highest points in Moscow, on the right bank of the Moskva, and Moscow State University is its main landmark. It was called Lenin Hills from 1935 until the old name returned in 1999.

    Open area inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Location precision: The series shows the panorama but the pin marks the Sparrow Hills area as a whole, not a specific viewpoint.

    Visitor guidance: The observation platform above the Moskva looks over the city; the university tower stands behind it.

    Sources

  2. In the spring and summer of 1991, Pchyola, Fil and Kosmos give the newlyweds a flat in a building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. The building is one of seven Stalinist skyscrapers, laid down in September 1947 and completed in 1952. Its main tower has 32 levels and is 176 metres tall.

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    Visitor guidance: A residential building, best seen from the embankment and from the nearby bridges.

    Sources

  3. To celebrate, the Brigada and Farik's men go to the Uzbekistan restaurant. It stands at Neglinnaya Street 29 in central Moscow. An officers' canteen on the site closed in 1951, and the restaurant opened in its place. Boris Yeltsin, Lyudmila Gurchenko and Vladimir Vysotsky were among its guests.

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    Location precision: The pin marks Neglinnaya Street near number 29, where the restaurant stands, not the building itself.

    Sources

  4. The gang's story was written during the 1998 Russian debt default. The producer gave the group of writers led by Alexei Sidorov a room at Mosfilm. The studio is among the largest and oldest in Russia and in Europe, and in that room the script took shape.

    Open inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitability not confirmed

    Sources

  5. Filming ran from September 2000 to September 2001, mostly in Moscow. Part of the series was shot in Dubna and Taldom, including the station fight that the plot places in Chechnya. Taldom is a town about 110 km north of Moscow, so the station scene never left the Moscow region.

    Open area inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitability not confirmed

    Location precision: The sources name the town as a filming location, not the exact station, so the pin marks Taldom.

    Sources

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