The Dawns Here Are Quiet: Karelia

Sergeant Major Vaskov runs a tiny railway siding between the front and the Murmansk line, north of blockaded Leningrad. His soldiers drink and the post is falling apart. Then squads of young anti-aircraft gunners arrive, and nothing goes the way he expected. In the film the women shoot at night and rest by day on a station far behind the lines. The siding is a creation of the story, so there is no pin.

Location precision: Siding 171 exists only in the story, so this stop has no pin on the map.

Vaskov expects the saboteurs to cross Vop Lake towards the railway, twenty versts away, and leads five women into the marsh to cut them off. The going is slow, and Galya loses a boot. Then comes the shock: sixteen Germans, not two. Lisa is sent back for help and drowns in the bog before she can reach the siding. Like the siding, the lake exists only in the story.

Location precision: Vop Lake is a place in the story, not a real lake on the map.

For Rostotsky the setting mattered, and the crew began shooting in Karelia in May 1971, working from dawn to dusk in cold weather and a real swamp. The shores of Syamozero in the Pryazha district were among the places used. The actresses carried bricks in their backpacks so that they would feel real fatigue rather than act it. The pin marks the lake, not one exact spot.

Location precision: Sources say filming took place on the lake shores without naming one spot; the pin marks the lake.

Location shooting for the film took place in this old Karelian village on the western shore of Syamozero, about 15 km from Essoila. It still has a 17th-century chapel of the Saviour Not Made by Hands and a mass grave of Soviet soldiers killed in 1941-1944, a reminder that the war here was real.

Visitor guidance: A small village on Syamozero; the chapel and the soldiers' grave are in the village. Treat it as a quiet living place.

Four low cascades, three to four metres high, on the Tohmajoki river near Ruskeala (historical name Ahinkoski). They became famous through the film: the crew built a dummy log cabin right on the waterfall, and it stayed there after shooting. An eco-trail with information boards runs along the falls, and kayakers run them.

Visitor guidance: Eco-trail with information boards along the falls, near the village of Ruskeala.