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MOSCOW

This page contains more details on the places mentioned in the script:

Old Basmanny Road

Старая Басманная улица

IRINA. We're hoping to be there before next fall. It's our hometown, we were born there. On Old Basmanny Road.

Old Basmanny Road has many potential namesakes. It could be named after the palace bakers that lived there and made basmans - a certain type of weighted bread. It could be named after artisans who "basmili" - made metal and leather jewelry. It could also be named after a close friend of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, Fyodor Basmanov, who lived there. The road used to be where visiting foreign dignitaries traveled to their residences until Peter the Great decided to used New Basmanny Road instead. Almost all of it burned down in a fire in 1812, and was rebuilt in the neoclassical style.

Below: A modern-day picture of Old Basmanny Road

GERMAN STREET

Немецкая улица

VERSHININ. I lived on German Street once, I used to walk to the Red Barracks. On the way, I crossed a sad, old bridge. I was sad and alone, the sound of the water... it was a melancholy scene. (Pause) The river here is brimming with life.

German Street is in Lefortovskaya Square, within the Basmanny District. It was once in an area known as the German Quarter, where many German craftsmen lived. After the fire in 1812, the German population left almost entirely.

Below: A postcard with a picture of a building on German street in the early 1900s.

Red barracks

Немецкая улица

VERSHININ. I lived on German Street once, I used to walk to the Red Barracks. On the way, I crossed a sad, old bridge. I was sad and alone, the sound of the water... it was a melancholy scene. (Pause) The river here is brimming with life.

The Red Barracks are also in the Basmanny District of Moscow. They have been owned by the army since their creation and are still owned by the army today.

Below, left: A picture of the Red Barracks from the early 1900s.

Below, right: A picture of the Red Barracks from 2011.

novodevichy cemetery

Новодевичье кладбище

IRINA. She's buried in Moscow.

OLGA. At the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Novodevichy is one of the most famous cemeteries in Russia, currently containing the bodies of Chekhov, Knipper, Gogol, Krushchev, Mayakovsky, Prokofiev, Stanislavsky, Tolstoy, and Yeltsin, among many others. It is attached to the southern wall of the Novodevichy Convent. Under one of its reconstructions, Chekhov's body was moved outside the monastery walls, starting a section of the cemetery referred to as the "cherry orchard," where Stanislavsky and other lead actors of the Moscow Art Theater are buried.

Right: Anton Chekhov's grave.

Below, left: The entrance to Novodevichy Cemetery.

Below, right: The cemetery wall.