Zhmurki: Nizhny Novgorod as a 1990s City

The film opens in Nizhny Novgorod in 1995, with a torturer nicknamed the Hangman and a victim in his morgue. The morgue was staged in the city's well-known bathhouse, built in 1868. Theatre actors were called in to play the corpses. The Kovalikhinsky Baths still work as baths, now without any bodies.

Visitor guidance: Still a working bathhouse, so go for the architecture or a steam, not for a photo shoot.

Koron, Bala and Eggplant sit on a stadium bench and talk, in one of the most quoted scenes of the film. The stadium was built in 1936, and the pilot Valery Chkalov took part in building it. The abandoned sports ground suited the picture's look perfectly. The bench and its railing survived for years. Since August 2025 the stadium has been closed to outsiders.

Next to the Church of Elijah the Prophet, below the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, comes one of the most absurd shootouts in Russian cinema. The bandit Sergei, played by Aleksei Panin, is devout: he crosses himself every time he sees a church. The church was closed in Soviet times and reopened after the USSR fell. Tradition says it was built to mark the deliverance of the city from the Tatars and Nogais in 1505.

Visitor guidance: An active parish church; Ilyinskaya street and the Fedorovsky embankment are a short walk away.

In the film this mansion on the Upper Volga Embankment is the residence of the crime boss Mikhalych, played by Nikita Mikhalkov. In real life it was built by the merchant Dmitry Sirotkin as a museum building that he wished to give to the city after his death. Today it houses the foreign art department of the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum.

Visitor guidance: Open as part of the art museum; check current hours.

Simon, played by Dmitry Dyuzhev, drinks water from Soviet-era soda machines on Bolshaya Pecherskaya street. Balabanov likely chose it from nostalgia: the institute where he studied faced this street. Another location is the Rukavishnikov estate at No. 21, from which the main heroes come out. The porch has changed since the shoot, so the frame is hard to match today.

Visitor guidance: A busy city street; the Rukavishnikov house is at No. 21.

Balabanov chose this crossing for its ancient look: at the time of the shoot two wooden houses on brick bases stood there. They are gone now, and a high-rise stands at 43 Maxim Gorky street. Further along Malaya Yamskaya some of the old buildings remain and are protected as monuments.

Location precision: The pin marks Malaya Yamskaya street; the exact corner is not given in the sources.

The final scene of gangster showdowns was filmed in this house, built in 1904 in Art Nouveau style. The building is not state-protected, and the block around it was being cleared for new development, so check what remains before you go.