ABSTRACT
The Stenka Razin was the last leviathan of the ambulant age. Already in 1903 property owners, who had previously been unwilling to provide premises for cinema, began to rent out conversions.2 Gradually a kind of cinema hall with its own architectonics began to emerge. The interior of the early cinemas in the 1904-8 period differed greatly not only from that of buildings where public amusements had previously taken place but also from that of the cinemas that came later. This early type of auditorium did not last long; in 1908 it was pushed out from the centre of town to the fringes. Between 1904 and 1908 the cinema theatre, as a rule, consisted of a single room without a foyer or vestibule. If-as most frequently happened-the cinema was in a converted flat with the partition walls removed, the public came into the building by the main staircase and bought their tickets at a desk behind the door, just inside the auditorium. The following descriptions capture the atmosphere of those early auditoria. As early as 1919 the critic I. N.Ignatov was reminiscing with nostalgia:
In those days, when cinema was in its infancy, the electric theatres sought refuge in humble premises, where the spectators sometimes sat on wooden benches, where there were no decorations or any amenities for the public, but where you could enjoy so many lively and curious impressions.3
