Office Romance: Ryazanov's Moscow

The film is set almost entirely inside one statistical institution, and its front door is the former Khomyakov apartment building at Petrovka 3/6, put up in 1900. This is the door the film shows from outside before the action moves indoors. Today the building houses the Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport and the Bolshoi restaurant, so you can walk up to the same facade.

Visitor guidance: A public street in central Moscow; the Bolshoi restaurant on the ground floor is open to visitors.

Behind the Petrovka door there is no office at all. Every interior, including director Kalugina's and deputy Samokhvalov's rooms and the big work hall, was built in pavilions at Mosfilm, the Soviet studio founded in 1924. Ryazanov shot in long takes with three cameras at once, which was new for Soviet cinema, between September 1976 and January 1977.

The rooftop with plants is not on Petrovka either. It is the roof of the Nirnzee House at Bolshoy Gnezdnikovsky Lane 10, built in 1912-1913 for architect Ernst-Richard Nirnzee. The building has a long film history, and Office Romance is one of several films that shot scenes on its roof.

Director Lyudmila Kalugina lives in an elite building at Bolshaya Nikitskaya 43, its facade facing Skatertny Lane. On a Sunday evening Novoseltsev visits her here, and the stiff, lonely boss is cautious but changes her look. The film places each hero by address: Kalugina in an elite house, ordinary staff in the sleeping districts.

Deputy director Yury Samokhvalov, who has just returned from abroad, lives on Gorky Street (now Tverskaya) in a building next to the Central Telegraph. The film does not name the exact house, which the pin marks only by the telegraph building. His address makes a point about status: he lives in the heart of Moscow, while ordinary staff live in the sleeping districts.

Location precision: The film only says his building stands next to the Central Telegraph; the pin marks Tverskaya Street 7.

Olga Ryzhova tells Samokhvalov she lives in her own flat outside the city, close to a station. In the film that suburban stop is Losinoostrovskaya, which in reality lies inside Moscow's city limits. The pin marks the station in north-east Moscow.