Mimino: From Telavi to Moscow

Mimino is a bush pilot from Telavi, but the mountain village where he belongs was filmed in Tusheti. In spring 1976 director Georgiy Daneliya chose two villages split by a gorge, Shenako and Omalo, and in Omalo the crew set out to recreate the everyday life of the highlanders. Filming there ran until late autumn 1976. Omalo is largely isolated from the rest of Georgia for most of the year, and the fortress of Keselo is a landmark in upper Omalo.

Location precision: The film's hometown is Telavi; the Tusheti shoot used Shenako and Omalo, and the pin marks Omalo.

In Moscow Mimino is put up in an exclusive hotel and shares a room with the Armenian truck driver Rubik Hachikyan. The two quickly become friends. The crew itself stayed at the Rossiya, and shot part of the room and restaurant scenes there. Then on 25 February 1977 a major fire broke out in the hotel and shooting stopped; the room was rebuilt in a Mosfilm studio. The Rossiya closed on 1 January 2006 and no longer stands.

Mimino asks Larisa to the theatre, and he and Rubik wait outside the Bolshoi, but they never meet. The scene needed many takes in the cold: temperatures sometimes fell to minus 36 degrees Celsius, and the freezing camera kept stopping. Kikabidze in a light raincoat and Mkrtchyan in a short jacket really did shiver. The Bolshoi re-opened on 28 October 2011 after a six-year renovation.

Mimino forces his way into Nugzar's apartment, and is accused of assaulting him and breaking his chandelier. He is arrested, and the prison scenes were shot at Butyrka prison. At the hearing he refuses to explain himself and is sentenced to two years, later reduced by the court to a fine. Butyrka is still a pretrial detention facility.

Out of options, Mimino heads to Vnukovo Airport and tries to sell his watch. There he meets Ivan Volokhov, who arranges an interview for him with the airline chairman. The misunderstanding is soon revealed, but the chairman is impressed by Mimino's honesty and offers him the job. Earlier he learned that at 35 he had just exceeded the age limit for airline pilot training. The airport lies 28 km southwest of the centre of Moscow.

Volokhov mistakenly believes Mimino is the son of an old wartime friend and drives him to see a boss. The mansion where his car stops stands at 11 Povarskaya Street. The boss's large office was filmed elsewhere, in a Mosfilm hall. The house is an eighteenth-century estate that has changed owners many times.

Location precision: The film's mansion is placed at 11 Povarskaya Street by one source; the pin marks that street number.

Mimino becomes an international pilot and flies a Tu-144 to West Berlin. Trying to phone Rubik from Berlin, he asks for Telavi, the operator mishears and connects him to Tel Aviv. Tegel is shown in the film as the Tu-144's landing place, though Soviet aircraft did not fly to West Berlin then. The crew lived in East Berlin and crossed the border daily to film. Tegel's last flight was on 8 November 2020.