Walking the Streets of Moscow: One Day Across the City

In the metro, Volodya keeps asking how to find Construction Lane, and Kolya, on his way home from a night shift, decides to help. Told to get off at Kirovskaya station, they come up onto Chistoprudny Boulevard, and here a dog bites Volodya. The camera takes in the old soda machines and the pond itself. The boulevard still includes the Clean Ponds, so the setting of that first scene is easy to recognise today.

Visitor guidance: A public boulevard with the pond; walk it along its length.

Construction Lane, the address Volodya is hunting for, never existed in Moscow. In the film its role is played by Krivoarbatsky Lane near the Arbat, and Kolya lives nearby: this is where his sister mends Volodya's bitten trousers. The cafe opposite Kolya's house was never real, only a film set. The building where Kolya lives was later given to the Kremlin clinic and lost its decor. Today the curved lane is best known for the Wall of Viktor Tsoi.

Location precision: Real filming location: the story's Construction Lane never existed; the lane was filmed here, and Kolya's home is nearby.

Visitor guidance: A small public lane off the Arbat; the Wall of Viktor Tsoi is here.

Kolya's old friend Sasha has been called up for military service on the day he planned to marry. The two of them walk past the Rossiya, a cinema built in 1961 that was newly finished but not yet open when they filmed. It opened with this very picture, and the film premiered there on 11 April 1964. The building, later the Pushkinsky, is now the Rossiya Theatre on Pushkinskaya Square.

Visitor guidance: A working theatre on Pushkinskaya Square; the square can be walked freely.

Kolya and Sasha go to GUM to buy a suit for the groom, and Volodya turns up there too. They end up at the music shop, where Kolya is drawn to the saleswoman, Alyona. Several scenes were filmed inside, and when a crowd gathered around the actors, Daneliya had a spare camera set up in a far corner to draw it away. Afterwards the heroes head to Red Square, where cars still drove; they were taken off it only in 1974.

Visitor guidance: GUM is a working shopping mall facing Red Square.

The two friends go looking for Alyona and do not find her at home. After a clumsy meeting with her father, Volodya lashes out at Kolya, and they part ways by the Borodino Panorama, newly open at the time. The museum building opened on 18 October 1962. It stands near Fili, where in 1812 Kutuzov held the council of war that decided to leave Moscow without a fight.

Visitor guidance: The panorama museum is on Kutuzovsky Prospekt.

In Gorky Park, at Krymsky Val, Kolya, Alyona and Volodya join a quick-draw contest on a stage show. Then Volodya accuses a man in the audience of being a thief, and a good part of the audience gives chase. The pursuit ends only thanks to Alyona's quick thinking. The film also shows the park's dance floor, which was then the main meeting place of Moscow's stilyagi, the city's style-conscious youth.

Visitor guidance: The park is across the Moskva River from Park Kultury metro station.

The day ends where it began, in the metro. Volodya leaps into his train, Alyona leaves in the opposite direction, and Kolya rides the escalator up, singing. Volodya's direction does not exist: at the time of filming, Universitet was the end of its line. The station, with its white marble pylons, had opened in 1959.

Visitor guidance: A working metro station on Lomonosovsky Prospekt.