The Pokrovsky Gate: Moscow Filming Locations

Kostik Romin comes to Moscow to study history and stays with his kindly aunt Alisa in a communal apartment building. The film's house is at Nashchokinsky Lane 10, its facade turned to Gogolevsky Boulevard, while the flat's interior was rebuilt in a Mosfilm pavilion. Kostik tells the neighbours that under the general plan "our little tower" will be demolished. It wasn't: the house still stands, but rebuilt almost beyond recognition, with a fourth floor added on top.

Location precision: The film's title refers to a square on the Boulevard Ring, but the building used for the exterior is at Nashchokinsky Lane 10; the pin marks that address.

The title refers to a square on Moscow's Boulevard Ring, near which the main characters live, and a large part of the film's outdoor shooting took place along the Ring. It is here that Lyudochka and Khobotov board a tram. Walking the boulevards between the film's house and the square is the easiest way to see the setting the characters move through.

Location precision: The film does not tie the tram scene to one named stop; the pin marks Gogolevsky Boulevard on the Ring near the film's house.

The skating rink is the place where almost all of the film's heroes meet at one moment or another. The script puts the rink at Chistye Prudy, but the cameras did not go there: the scenes were shot on the ice at Patriarch Ponds instead. So the one stop that brings the whole cast together is a small switch of setting, swapping one Moscow pond for another.

Kostik falls for Rita, and for her he decides to give up his playboy lifestyle. Rita lives on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, in one of Moscow's seven Stalinist high-rises, a building designed by Chechulin and Rostkovsky. The film even names the gift Kostik is supposed to bring when he meets the family: a bottle of Krasnaya Moskva perfume for Rita's mother.

The comic singer Arkady Velyurov performs for the public on a summer bandshell, and Svetlana turns up to one of his concerts in answer to a telegram Kostik had urged him to send. The scene was shot in the Hermitage garden. When the film was handed in, television bosses thought the pattern on the bandshell's grille looked like a six-pointed star, but the episode was saved and stayed in the film.

After the surgeon's verdict, Lev Khobotov is taken off to hospital. For these scenes the crew used the Sports Medicine Centre at Zemlyanoy Val 53, including a grotto where Velyurov, dressed in pyjamas, gives a performance. Gazebos, sculptures and the grotto seen in the film survived into the 21st century. The film's final scenes belong to May 1957, which closes this route.