Where were 17 Moments of Spring filmed? Where was "17 Moments of Spring" filmed: filming locations, history of the film. While working on the music, Tariverdiev wrote ten songs, but only two of them were included in the film
Probably, each of us at least once wondered: Where was the first cult television series “Seventeen Moments of Spring” filmed? Having tormented the search engines a little, you can easily find a breakdown of the film and see places in Germany (formerly the GDR) and Riga (Latvia) where your favorite movie was filmed. But for some reason, few places mention that Moscow also served as the setting for the film. We decided to correct this situation.
So, let's go.
Episode 1
The first shots of the film. SS Standartenführer Stirlitz, under the name of Mr. Bolsen, was walking with Frau Saurich in a small forest on the shore of a very beautiful pond. It turns out that these picturesque places were filmed here, in the North-Eastern administrative district of Moscow, on the territory of a former manorial estate, known since the 16th century - Arkhangelskoye-Tyurikovo.
Having driven just one kilometer along the Dmitrovskoe Highway from the Moscow Ring Road, you will find yourself in a green zone, where you can take a break from the bustle of the city and enjoy the silence of the garden, see two-hundred-year-old ash trees, old-time oaks, elms, maples of various species, and giant pines, which are quite rare for the Moscow region. The variety of surviving deciduous trees gives the place a special European flavor. Apparently this is what attracted the film crew of “17 Moments of Spring”
It’s interesting that the role of the Berlin-Bern highway in the movie was played by the Chelobitevskoye Highway :) 
This is what the place looks like today
in winter 
in autumn 
Episode 2
In the last modern photograph, an island is visible in the middle of a forest pond; it can also be distinguished in one of the scenes of the second series, when Stirlitz drowned agent Klaus (artist Lev Durov) who had been shot by him.
They say that local boys spent several years looking for the pistol that Stirlitz threw into the pond.
Episode 5
The mansion of the US special agency in Bern.
The film "17 Moments of Spring" is a rare opportunity to see the interiors of the pearl of Myasnitskaya Street - the city estate of Chertkov.
There are very few photographs of interiors in the public domain, but we will show you a fireplace that is 100% attributable to the premises.
Fireplace in the White Hall 
Episode 6
The border station from which Pleischner leaves for Bern. It’s interesting to know that our Moscow Rizhsky Station played the role of this station. Compare for yourself
It’s interesting that in episode 12 the Rizhsky station will appear in the frame again, but as a station in Bern (more on that below)
Episode 8
Meanwhile, radio operator Kat has been arrested and is in a safe house, where they are trying to get the codes out of her by cruelly playing on her mother’s feelings. Stirlitz comes here.
The place is very easy to recognize - M. Rzhevsky, 6. Solovyov's mansion is one of the masterpieces of Moscow Art Nouveau
still from the film (view from M. Rzhevsky Lane): 
and this photograph was taken around the same time (early 1970s), but from Khlebny Lane 
Not only that, but in the next frame we see confirmation hints: 
on the left side of the frame there is still a mailbox - a bat 
and on the right - a saber-toothed lion made of stone 
Episode 12 Train station in Bern.
Stirlitz escorts the rescued Kat from Bern to Paris. And we again see the Rizhsky railway station in Moscow. Only the inscriptions here are completely different than in episode 8.
On February 8, 1928, Vyacheslav Vasilyevich Tikhonov was born - film actor, People's Artist of the USSR. In Tatiana Lioznova’s 12-episode feature film “Seventeen Moments of Spring,” Tikhonov played his most famous role – intelligence officer Isaev-Stirlitz, working in the spring of 1945 in the lair of Nazi Germany. The film became a real hit, however, when at the beginning of 1973 it was edited and shown to high-ranking television authorities, the first reproaches fell on the director’s head... What scandals did the film cause, who could have ended up instead of Tikhonov in Muller’s office, what role Kuravlev “didn’t master” , why Faina Ranevskaya called the script nonsense - these other unknown facts about the famous picture in our photo report.
The history of the film begins in 1969, when television approved the script for the 13-episode film “Seventeen Moments of Spring” and chose a director for it. The novel by Yulian Semenov, which served as the basis, was not even published as a separate book at that time.
In the midst of preparatory work, another director, 46-year-old Tatyana Lioznova, began to fight for the right to direct such a film, because she was not chosen at first.
Lioznova called Semenov himself, who told her that he had sold the script to Lenfilm, but she insisted so stubbornly that in the end the author withdrew the script from Lenfilm and gave it to Tatyana.
Lioznova was a very meticulous director, and therefore she selected actors for her film with incredible precision. For example, Yulian Semenov was sure that only Archil Gomiashvili (pictured) could play Stirlitz.
The director's assistants insisted on Oleg Strizhenov. Innokenty Smoktunovsky (pictured) also auditioned for the role, but he then lived in Leningrad and did not agree to leave it for two years of filming.
At first, the make-up artists glued on a mustache like Budyonny’s to Vyacheslav Tikhonov, but Liznova considered the right candidate even under them.
Irina Alferova could have played radio operator Kat instead of Ekaterina Gradova, but it didn’t work out.
Both Leningrad singer Maria Pakhomenko and Svetlana Svetlichnaya auditioned for the role of Stirlitz’s wife, who was later approved for the role of Gabi. The wife of the Soviet intelligence officer was the Vakhtangov Theater actress Eleonora Shashkova, who was brought to the set the day before filming.
Even Faina Ranevskaya herself could appear in the film, for whose character - Frau Saurich - Lioznova asked Semenov to write specifically in order to also soften the too serious hero.
Semyonov reluctantly composed something, but when it was shown to Faina Georgievna, she was simply horrified. “What kind of idiocy is this? Is it possible to play this? And she flatly refused.
There were several candidates for the role of Hitler, for whom two Leonids auditioned: Bronevoy and Kuravlev. However, the director was not satisfied with their photo tests, and they were approved for other roles: Bronevoy played Muller, Kuravlev played Aisman.
Kuravlev recalled: “I couldn’t overcome this Antichrist. My nature jumped up and was against it.”
And Hitler became the German actor Fritz Dietz, who has forever played this role since the epic “Liberation”.
Efim Kopelyan was also initially supposed to play in the film, but ended up becoming a “voice-over”. The director recalls: “I called him in Leningrad and asked him to tell him that I was on my knees asking him to agree. Working with him was an absolute pleasure. He came and, although he had just gotten off the train, he always managed to shave and change into a snow-white shirt, and never betrayed himself. We became comrades. His voice sounds like he knows more than he says."
When Lioznova read the final version of Yulian Semenovich’s script, she was simply shocked: she liked the storyline and details in the book, but in the script everything was completely different.
"Catastrophe! I worked 12 hours a day, I don’t remember if I slept. But I won’t say that I didn’t have fun, because my hands were free, and besides, I didn’t go against the book material, but, on the contrary, defended it,” says the director
Most of the actors were working on other films at the same time, so it was extremely difficult to get everyone together for filming - they had to film at night.
“Sometimes it seemed to us, the actors who starred as Germans, that we were participating in some kind of creepy, low-grade action movie. These uniforms, pistols... But we thought that in Uryupinsk somewhere in the fourth program he would slip through,” Yuri Vizbor recalled about the filming.
For filming in the GDR, the group had to take almost all of their props, which included Stirlitz’s Mercedes car (from the garage of the Gorky Studio). German craftsmen, having examined the wartime Mercedes, said that it was unlikely to be able to work.
The filmmakers laughed, but on the very first day of filming the Mercedes actually stalled. I had to rent a car.
Filming Stirlitz behind the wheel of a speeding car was very funny: the car was rocked by about ten people, including Lioznova herself. Of course, it was impossible to do without jokes and jokes, and Tikhonov begged him not to do this, because he had to put on a smart face.
By the way, one day the actor was almost arrested: he decided to march from the hotel to the set in the uniform of an SS Standartenführer. The Berliners considered him a supporter of fascism and were going to hand him over to the police station.
The rest of the locations were filmed in their homeland: in Riga - Tsvetochnaya Street, in Tbilisi and Borjomi - the Schlag crossing through the Alps, and Stirlitz's walks in the forest - in the Moscow region.
Filming took place on a tight schedule, sometimes one and a half shifts – 12 hours. Lionzova wanted to make even the little things perfect.
The episode of the meeting between Stirlitz and Schlag, where our intelligence officer feeds him soup, from which a stream of steam rose upward, was not filmed right away: there was no steam, sometimes there was little of it, sometimes, on the contrary, a lot.
In the frame where they showed Stirlitz’s hands, it was necessary to film the hands of the film’s artist, Felix Rostotsky: Tikhonov had a tattoo on his right hand, made in his youth - “Glory”, which the make-up artists could not cover up for close-ups.
In the episode where the SS men tortured the child of radio operator Kat, about two dozen children from a nearby orphanage acted as the child. Each person could be removed for no more than two hours a day, with intervals of at least fifteen minutes for swaddling and feeding.
Tikhonov once told how he achieved a tense, thinking face while playing the role of Stirlitz. The secret turned out to be the multiplication table, which he scrolled through in his head for several minutes while the cameraman was filming the next scene.
Director Tatyana Lioznova once admitted in an interview that she believed that after the credits, Stirlitz would have very bad days ahead: “He was on the lucky side for so long, on the edge, that it shouldn’t have the most cheerful ending... I don’t want to be there. And I don’t want to force the viewer to see it.”
The music for the film was written by Mikael Tariverdiev, although at first he refused to write it for a spy film: before that, he had failed twice with a similar theme.
During the work, the composer wrote ten songs, but only two of them were included in the film: “Somewhere Far Away...” and “Moments.” Eight others simply had to be thrown out because there was no place for them in the film.
When, at the beginning of 1973, the film was shown to high-level television management after editing, the first reproaches rained down on the director.
The loudest indignation was the military, who did not like the fact that, according to the film, the war was won by the intelligence officers alone. Lioznova had to correct the situation, and she included several hundred more meters of documentary footage in the film.
The film premiered at the end of the summer of 1973: from August 11 to 24, the whole country literally glued itself to television screens. According to police reports of the time, crime dropped sharply throughout the country.
On one of the premiere days, a Muscovite called the film studio, who conveyed her warm greetings to the creators of the film and thanked her for the fact that for several days now, while the film was running, her husband had been sitting at home and not drinking, since all his drinking companions were busy watching the series.
The actors became superstars overnight. For example, Ekaterina Gradova, going out for a walk with her dog and dropping into the Novoarbatsky grocery store, was unexpectedly captured.
Buyers recognized her, began to kiss her, hug her, and ask for autographs. Gradova stood for almost two hours, pressed against the counter by the crowd, after which disgruntled sellers called the police.
The series was so popular that many new mothers named their children, if not Stirlitz, then Yulian - in honor of Yulian Semenov. By the way, the future famous singer Julian also became a victim of fashion.
But Tariverdiev had a hard time. Once he stopped by the All-Union Radio, where they told him: “We received a call from the French embassy, the French are protesting against this film, because the music in it was ripped off from composer Francis Ley, from his film “Love Story.”
“What nonsense?” – Tariverdiev was indignant. “It’s nonsense, it’s not nonsense, but it’s a fact,” they answered him. A certain citizen, who introduced himself as an employee of the French embassy, also called the Gorky studio, where the film was filmed, and expressed outrage that the music of “Moments” was plagiarized by Ley’s music
As soon as the composer crossed the threshold of the reception room of the chairman of the Union of Composers, the secretary handed him a telegram... from Francis Ley. It said: “Congratulations on the success of my music in your film. Francis Ley."
As a result, Tariverdiev was dissuaded from visiting the French embassy... by KGB officers who contacted Lei through their own channels. He categorically denied his involvement in the scandal surrounding his music for the film “Seventeen Moments of Spring” and said that he had not sent any telegram accusing his Soviet colleague of plagiarism.
By the way, Yulian Semenov provided his colleagues in the film - Tariverdiev, Tatyana Lioznova and Vyacheslav Tikhonov, with special certificates of the State Security Committee, where it was written: “Without the right to stop,” and signed: “Andropov.”
Once Tariverdiev deliberately drove his car into the territory of Red Square: “The traffic cop’s eyes began to pop out of his head as he analyzed what was written, then he hastily saluted, and now I slowly and impressively drove past him.”
Stirlitz became the most famous image of an intelligence officer in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, as well as a character in Soviet and Russian jokes.
In 2011, sculptor Alexander Boyko announced the start of fundraising for the installation of a monument to Stirlitz in Vladivostok near the Versailles Hotel, where Yulian Semenov lived and, perhaps, came up with the image of the intelligence officer.
This story begins in 1969, when television approved the script for the 13-episode film “Seventeen Moments of Spring” and selected a director. Yulian Semyonov’s novel had not even been published as a separate book yet.
However, in the midst of preparatory work, the situation suddenly changed. The fact is that another director, 46-year-old Tatyana Lioznova, began to fight for the right to direct such a film.
She contacted Semyonov and stated that she would be the one to shoot the film based on his script. But Semyonov upset her: “I already sold the script to Lenfilm, so - alas!” Lioznova was not going to give up, she insisted so stubbornly on her own that in the end Semyonov could not stand it - he withdrew the script from Lenfilm and handed it over to Lioznova. Her name was already known to the mass audience from the films “Evdokia” and “Three Poplars on Plyushchikha” and she was rightfully one of the highest-grossing directors of Soviet cinema. All these successes played into Lioznova’s hands, but there was one “but”: everything she shot was related to melodrama, and “Moments” belonged to the genre of military-historical cinema. Therefore, many who were involved in the creation of the film had fair concerns: would such a director (and a woman at that!) cope with this task? But Lioznova still managed to convince skeptics that she was up to the task.
Since Tatyana Lioznova was always famous for her meticulousness, she selected the actors for her film with incredible precision - the image had to match 100%. For example, Yulian Semyonov was sure that only Archil Gomiashvili could play Stirlitz. The director's assistants insisted on Oleg Strizhenov. Innokenty Smoktunovsky also auditioned for the role. However, he was then living in Leningrad, and filming was supposed to take place over two years. The actor was not satisfied with this, and his candidacy was dropped. Lioznova, not agreeing with anyone, continued her search. When Vyacheslav Tikhonov, made up, appeared at the auditions in a German uniform, with a mustache glued on, like Budyonny’s, Lioznova got angry and demanded that Colonel Isaev be corrected. The next time, the make-up artists did a great job - and Tikhonov, according to the director, finally became the spitting image of Stirlitz.
The main competitor of Ekaterina Gradova, who played the Russian radio operator Kat, was Irina Alferova.
Both Leningrad singer Maria Pakhomenko and Svetlana Svetlichnaya auditioned for the role of Stirlitz’s wife, who was later cast in the role of Gabi, who is in love with the main character. Well, the actress of the Vakhtangov Theater Eleonora Shashkova, who was brought to the set the day before filming, was destined to become the wife of the Soviet intelligence officer.
The great Faina Ranevskaya could also appear in the film. In order to somehow humanize the image of the intelligence officer, to “warm” and soften the too serious hero, the director decided to introduce another character who was not in the book or in the script - Frau Saurich. Lioznova asked Yulian Semenov to write a couple of scenes with the participation of an old German woman, hoping that Faina Georgievna would play her. Semyonov reluctantly composed something - it turned out to be terrible nonsense. Tatyana Mikhailovna immediately decided that during the filming process she would do everything her own way. When Lioznova and Semenov came to Ranevskaya’s home and showed her the script, Faina Georgievna, after reading it, was horrified. “What kind of idiocy is this?” she exclaimed. “Can this be played?” And she flatly refused.
There were several candidates for the role of Hitler, for whom two Leonids auditioned: Bronevoy and Kuravlev. However, their photo tests did not satisfy the director, and they were approved for other roles: Bronevoy played Muller (a paradox, but the actor’s father served in the KGB all his life), Kuravlyov played Aisman. And Hitler became the German actor Fritz Dietz, who has forever played this role since the epic “Liberation”.
There were also several candidates for the role of Muller, for example, Vsevolod Sanaev. But he categorically refused the role, saying: “I am the secretary of the Mosfilm party organization, so I will not play a fascist!”
Yuri Vizbor also tried to refuse the role of Borman, but then changed his mind. To create the gloomy face of a fascist boss, the actor had tampons inserted into his nose, and his uniform was padded with foam rubber to give it impressive volume. Since Vizbor’s voice was soft and gentle, he had to be voiced in the film by another actor - Solovyov from the Film Actor Theater.
Lioznova recalls: “The actors were not surprised by my choice, because they had rehearsed for a very long time beforehand. With different partners... The whole choice is the secret of my inner life. And endless immersion in the scenes of the future film. Playing out the whole picture in your mind with different combinations of actors.” Initially, BDT actor Efim Kopelyan was supposed to have a role in the film. However, it so happened that there was no place for him in the acting team and Lioznova invited him to become a “voice-over”. The director recalls: “I called him in Leningrad and asked him to tell him that I was on my knees asking him to agree. Working with him was an absolute pleasure. He came and, although he had just gotten off the train, he always managed to shave and change into a snow-white shirt, and never betrayed himself. We became comrades. His voice sounds like he knows more than he says."
The music for the film, as you know, was written by Mikael Tariverdiev. However, few people know that he initially refused to work on the film. Before that, he had already written music for Benjamin Dorman’s spy film “Resident Error,” and this work did not satisfy him. Therefore, in 1967, he refused another offer to work in a movie about intelligence officers - to write music for Savva Kulish’s film “Dead Season” (which he later greatly regretted). The same fate could have befallen “Seventeen Moments of Spring.” When Tariverdiev found out that the film was from the same series as the previous two, he expressed his firm “no” to the director. But I still took the script, read it and immediately changed my mind. He suddenly realized that although the film would be about intelligence officers, it would be in a completely different way than it had been previously in other films.
While working on the music, Tariverdiev wrote ten songs, but only two of them were included in the film: “Somewhere Far Away...” and “Moments.” Eight others had to be thrown out because there was nowhere to put them. And, I think, rightly so: due to this, it was possible to insert a lot of wonderful instrumental music into the picture.
Various singers were auditioned for the songs. First they invited Vadim Mulerman. However, his candidacy was cut down by high television authorities. Then Lioznova invited the no less popular singer Muslim Magomayev, who recorded all the songs for the film. Lioznova listened to them... and rejected them. She asked Magomayev to sing the songs in a different key, but the singer refused. He said that he never adapts to anyone. Then Joseph Kobzon was invited to record the songs, whose performance satisfied everyone.
When Lioznova read the script that Yulian Semenovich returned from Leningrad, she was shocked. There was a lot in the book that appealed to her, but in the script it was completely different - there were five corpses on each page. In general, Semenov signed off and calmly went to Bulgaria to hunt wild boars, so Lioznova had no choice but to get to work - writing both literary and directorial scripts. “A disaster!” recalls Tatyana Mikhailovna. “I worked 12 hours a day, I don’t remember whether I slept. But I won’t say that I didn’t enjoy it, because my hands were free, and besides, I didn’t go against the book material, but, on the contrary, defended it."
True, there was no scene of Stirlitz celebrating February 23 in Yulian Semenov’s book. However, like the meeting between the scout and his wife in the Elephant tavern. The author of the idea was Tikhonov and Lioznova inserted it into the script. By the way, at first the director was going to show not only Stirlitz’s wife, who came to the meeting, but also his little son, whom the intelligence officer allegedly had not seen yet. But after the screen tests, Lioznova realized that the child would distract attention, and abandoned this idea. This scene was suggested by one of the consultants, who were both military historians and people from Lubyanka, and quite high-ranking ones at that. With their help, details of military life in Nazi Germany and the work of intelligence officers were recreated.
Filming began in March 1971 with an expedition to the GDR. There they had to film all the scenes of Stirlitz in Berlin, as well as his murder of the Gestapo provocateur Klaus. However, it will not be possible to film the last episode on German soil, since our authorities categorically refused to let actor Lev Durov go even to a country friendly to the USSR. Reason: bad behavior of the actor on the visiting committee. What it is? In accordance with the situation that existed then, every citizen of the USSR traveling abroad had to first go through the filter of the exit commission. It usually included the most zealous servants of the party, who saw each departure as, at worst, a potential traitor to the motherland, at best, a fool. So they greeted Durov accordingly. For example, they immediately asked: “Describe to us what the flag of the Soviet Union looks like.” Having heard such a question, the actor answered it in accordance with the situation: “It looks very simple: a black background, on it is a white skull and two crossed shin bones. It's called the Jolly Roger flag. What started here! The women screamed, the men waved their hands: how dare you! Shame on you! However, the survey continued, but this could no longer lead to anything good. A certain lady asked: “Name the capitals of the Union republics.” Durov, without blinking an eye, listed: “Kalinin, Tambov, Magnitogorsk, Tula, Malakhovka.” They didn’t ask him anything else and crossed him off the list of those leaving. Of course, Durov greatly let down the entire film crew, but he simply could not do otherwise - he did not want to look like an even bigger idiot in the eyes of idiots. Fortunately, Lioznova will find a way out of this situation: the murder of Klaus by Stirlitz will be filmed a little later in a forest near Moscow. And after this incident, Durov was firmly assigned a nickname, which he was very proud of - “the main bandit of the republic.”
In the GDR, the filmmakers took almost all of their props, which included Stirlitz’s Mercedes car (from the garage of the Gorky Studio). However, German craftsmen who examined this wartime Mercedes said that it was unlikely to be able to work: the condition was, they say, disgusting. Our people just laughed at this statement. But on the very first day of filming, the Mercedes actually stalled. The group was rescued by sound engineer Leonard Bukhov, who found his front-line friend Gunther Kliebenstein, who collected old cars. From his collection, a car was rented for Stirlitz in very excellent condition.
There were other curious cases on German soil. For example, once Vyacheslav Tikhonov was almost arrested. He decided to march from the hotel to the film set (fortunately it was not far) in the uniform of an SS Standartenführer, for which he was immediately detained by the Berliners. They considered him a supporter of fascism and were about to take him to the police station. Fortunately, members of the film crew heard this noise, rushed to the scene of the scandal and recaptured the artist from the Berliners.
By the way, the rest of the location was filmed in their homeland: Flower Street was filmed in Riga, the Schlag crossing through the Alps was filmed in Tbilisi and Borjomi, Stirlitz’s walks in the forest were filmed in the Moscow region.
In April, the film crew returned to their homeland and almost immediately began pavilion filming at the Gorky Studio. There, several sets were already prepared for their arrival: Stirlitz’s apartment, the corridors of the Reich Chancellery, Muller’s office. Filming took place on a tight schedule, sometimes one and a half shifts - 12 hours. Let me note this nuance: if a feature film director had to produce 45-50 useful meters per shift, then a television director, with the same opportunities and conditions, had to produce 90 meters. Therefore, the operator of “Moments” Pyotr Kataev had to remain on the cart for long hours. Moreover, he worked with just one antediluvian camera, which forced him to resort to various tricks: for example, to prevent the camera from rattling, it was covered with a padded jacket, since then there was no sound.
Lioznova has always been particularly meticulous in showing details, and “Seventeen Moments” was no exception. Another thing is how much hellish work it took to show these details. Take, for example, the episode of the meeting between Stirlitz and Schlag, where our intelligence officer feeds him soup. As we remember, Stirlitz opened the tureen, and a stream of steam rose up, which the pastor, who spent a long time in prison, looked at with lust. So the filmmakers just couldn’t get this steam going: sometimes there was little of it, sometimes, on the contrary, there was a lot of it, which “blurred” the picture. And only after a large number of takes was it finally possible to release the steam the way Lioznova had intended.
The filming of another episode - Stirlitz behind the wheel of a speeding car - was no less curious. The latter was rocked by about ten people, including Lioznova herself. At the same time, it was impossible to do without jokes, although Tikhonov begged not to do this: he could not concentrate and put on a smart face. Therefore, reader, now reviewing these frames, imagine how much effort it took for the actor to portray deep thoughtfulness in the frame.
The director of the film was Efim Lebedinsky, who invited his acquaintances to play the role of extras - the same SS men guarding the headquarters of the RSHA - and, let's face it, only Jews. A consultant from the KGB, who once came to the set and saw these extras, suddenly became indignant: how is it possible that Jews are being cast as SS men?!
- What are you, an anti-Semite? - Lioznova was surprised.
- No, but you yourself know what kind of relations we have with Israel. So it turns out that in our film we will show that Jews were exterminated by the same Jews, only in Gestapo uniform. Lioznova understood the hint. She called Lebedinsky and ordered the extras to be changed.
- How to change?! I already paid them! — the director was indignant.
- It’s okay, you’ll compensate from your pocket! - Lioznova snapped.
The director had to obey. That same day, with the help of the same KGB consultant, he called the Higher Border School and asked to send a dozen tall cadets, preferably Baltic, to the filming. These are the ones we now see on the screen.
There were other substitutions in the film. So, in the frame where they showed Stirlitz’s hands (when he draws the bonze of the Reich and lays out figures of animals from matches), the hands of... the film’s artist, Felix Rostotsky, were filmed. Ask why? The fact is that Tikhonov had a tattoo on his right hand, made in his youth - “Glory”. And no matter how hard the make-up artists tried to cover it up, it still showed up in close-ups. To play it safe, we decided to film the other person’s hands. It was he, Rostotsky, who wrote the codes for Pleischner-Evstigneev. But there the reason was different: the actor’s handwriting was too bad to show it close-up.
In one of the most dramatic episodes of the film - where the SS men tortured the child of radio operator Kat, the role of the child was played not by one actor, but by several - about two dozen. Newborn babies from a nearby orphanage were used in the filming. They were constantly changing because they simply couldn’t handle a full day of filming. They could be removed no more than two hours a day at intervals of at least fifteen minutes for swaddling and feeding.
The viewer probably remembers that the SS men tortured the child by placing him near an open window, and according to the plot, the action took place in early April. However, in fact, the shooting took place in the studio and there was not even the slightest draft in it. Moreover, it was so hot there from the spotlights that the children flatly refused to cry, but stretched sweetly and smiled at the camera. In the end, the sound engineer had to go to the maternity hospital and record the crying on film. This recording was later included in the film.
When the film was edited in early 1973 and shown to senior television executives, the first reproaches fell on the director. The most indignant were the military, who said that according to the film, the war was won by the intelligence officers alone. Lioznova did not dare to object to them, so she went to correct the annoying mistake. She included several hundred more meters of documentary footage in the film, and the military’s claims were dropped.
The film premiered at the end of the summer of 1973: from August 11 to 24. All the days while it was on display, literally the whole country was glued to their TV screens. And as police reports of that time say, crime dropped sharply throughout the country. And this was not only the case with us. One of our television directors once visited Hungary and, in one of his private conversations with the border guard there, asked: “Are your citizens, by any chance, fleeing to neighboring prosperous Austria?” To which the border guard replied: “At the moment, no. Because now your “Seventeen Moments of Spring” is shown on our TV.
Meanwhile, if in the first two episodes viewers only took a closer look at the series, then already from the third many of them began to be overwhelmed with such an excess of feelings that they armed themselves with pen and paper. Letters poured in to the State Television and Radio and Film Studio named after Gorky; their telephone wires were literally heating up from calls. On one of those premiere days, for example, a certain Muscovite called, who conveyed her huge greetings to the creators of the film and her heartfelt gratitude for the fact that for several days now, while the film lasts, her husband has been sitting at home and not drinking, since all his drinking companions are busy or watching the series. By the way, Tatyana Lioznova herself did not watch the film in those days - she did not have the strength. But every evening I peered into the windows of neighboring houses and saw that many of them went out immediately when the next episode ended.
According to legend, when Leonid Brezhnev watched the film, he was so moved that he ordered his assistants to immediately find the real Stirlitz and reward him properly. To which Andropov replied that Stirlitz is a fictitious person. “It’s a pity,” Brezhnev shook his head. However, that same day he called Ekaterina Gradova at home to express his gratitude to her. But the actress considered this call to be someone's stupid joke and hung up. When she did this the second time, Brezhnev’s assistant had already called her and asked her not to hang up: “Leonid Ilyich will really talk to you.”
Meanwhile, Andropov did not forget his conversation with Brezhnev regarding Stirlitz. And when in 1983 the KGB chief himself became General Secretary, he ordered that all participants in the film be awarded orders. As a result, V. Tikhonov received the “Star”, R. Plyatt and T. Lioznova received the Order of the October Revolution, L. Broneva, O. Tabakov and E. Evstigneev received the Red Banner of Labor, N. Volkov and E. Gradova received the Friendship of Peoples.
When preparing this post, we used materials from F. Razzakov’s book “Our Favorite Movie. Intrigues Behind the Scenes.” Algorithm. 2004, articles by F. Razzakov “And you, Stirlitz...”, Vladimir Gromov “For the filming of “Seventeen Moments of Spring”, 12 suits and 100 shirts were sewn for Stirlitz”, Valentina Oberemko “How Stirlitz’s wife appeared”
On August 11, 1973, the USSR Central Television began showing the multi-part feature film “Seventeen Moments of Spring.”
How Stirlitz influenced the crime rate in the USSR, who Breitenbach was and what Fidel Castro said after watching it.
Who's the last one on Stirlitz?
It is now simply impossible to imagine Stirlitz performed by anyone other than Vyacheslav Tikhonov, but at first his candidacy was not considered. The author of the script for “Seventeen Moments of Spring,” Yulian Semenov, wanted the role of the Soviet intelligence officer to be played by actor Archil Gomiashvili, known to viewers for his role as Ostap Bender in Gaidai’s “12 Chairs.” Oleg Strizhenov was also considered, but he did not want to leave acting at the Moscow Art Theater for three years to film a movie (that’s how long “Seventeen Moments of Spring” was filmed). Tikhonov himself got into the film by accident - one of the director Tatyana Lioznova’s assistants suggested him. At the audition, when Tikhonov was made up and a huge fluffy mustache was attached to him, Lioznova, barely looking at him, almost refused the new Stirlitz, but after listening she changed her mind.
Mysterious Breitenbach
Stirlitz never existed in reality - this character was invented by writer and screenwriter Yulian Semenov. However, there is a legend that its prototype was the deputy chief of German intelligence, Willy Lehmann (nickname Breitenbach, code number A201). Leman worked for the USSR on his own initiative; no one recruited him. It is curious that Lehmann was in good standing with Hitler for a long time, for which he was awarded an autographed portrait of the Fuhrer. Lehmann's traces in history were lost in 1942, when he was arrested by the Gestapo without formulating charges. Of course, most likely, Willy Lehman died, but Tatyana Lioznova still left the ending of “Seventeen Moments of Spring” open, leaving the viewer to decide for himself what happened to Stirlitz.
The wife suddenly appeared
Stirlitz's wife appeared in the film only thanks to the initiative of Vyacheslav Tikhonov - the script did not foresee her appearance. An acquaintance of Tikhonov, a certain KGB intelligence officer, told the actor that sometimes those who worked undercover outside the USSR brought their relatives for a date, and the actor shared the idea with Lioznova. The director agreed, believing that the film would have more drama this way.
The failed role of Svetlana Svetlichnaya
Singer Maria Pakhomenko and actress Svetlana Svetlichnaya auditioned for the role of Colonel Isaev’s wife, but Tatyana Lioznova considered their candidates unsuccessful. And although Svetlichnaya eventually got the role of the German woman Gabi, who is in love with Stirlitz, she regretted for a long time that she was not able to get that coveted role. Although, by the way, her performance of Gabi was highly appreciated by both the audience, for whom her heroine became the embodiment of unconditional and devoted love, and critics, who noted the actress’s great dramatic talent.
With just one glance
An interesting story is connected with the actress Eleonora Shashkova, who eventually played the role of Colonel Isaev’s wife. According to Shashkova’s recollections, she was brought to the set the day before filming began. At first, sitting alone with the director, she did not cope well with the role. However, then Lioznova called Vyacheslav Tikhonov and sat him in front of the actress, saying: “Now seriously. Here is your intelligence husband.” It was after these words, seeing Tikhonov-Stirlitz in front of her, that Shashkova performed the role as needed - with restrained depth, showing with one glance all the bitter, heavy, but bright feelings of her heroine. By the way, Vyacheslav Tikhonov himself said that the multiplication table helped him create Stirlitz’s tense and concentrated gaze: when he needed to look at someone “hard,” he simply began to remember examples and tried to solve them.
The child outplayed everyone
By the way, in the episode of Isaev’s meeting with his wife there should have been a small child - the son of a colonel, whom he saw for the first time in his life. However, right during filming, Lioznova ordered the removal of the child, leaving Stirlitz with his wife one-on-one. She reasoned that if a child appeared in the frame, it would add unnecessary sentimentality to the already overloaded meeting with emotions, and besides, all attention would shift from the adults to the child, who, with his charmingness, would negate the play of Tikhonov and Shashkova.
Filming under the hood
The KGB agents who advised the film crew admitted that although they liked the powerful episode of Isaev’s meeting with his wife, they noted that it lacked credibility. A real intelligence officer’s wife would understand perfectly well the conditions under which her date with her husband is taking place, that he can be watched 24 hours a day, and therefore would never allow herself to show any “suspicious” emotions, so as not to endanger the life of her loved one . By the way, the “customer” of the film was the State Security Committee and Yuri Andropov personally, but this, of course, is not mentioned in the credits.
Jewish SS platoon
The creators' pursuit of historical accuracy in the film led to a very funny story. When all the footage with the participation of the German army was filmed, a certain consultant, looking at the names in the credits, noticed that almost all SS soldiers were Jews. A second consultant, acting independently of the first, came up with the same summary: all “Germans” had Jewish appearance. Therefore, fifty blond, blue-eyed border guard cadets urgently arrived from Estonia, who became the very SS soldiers that we see in the film.
Show your hands
In the scene where Stirlitz lays out matches on the table, we see the hands not of Vyacheslav Tikhonov, but of the artist Felix Rostotsky. The reason for such a strange replacement is that on the back of Tikhonov’s hand there was an impressive ink tattoo “GLORY”, which he made in his youth and which no makeup could remove. At the same time, it was the same Rostotsky who wrote codes for Professor Pleischner - not because Evgeny Evstigneev had a “ZHENYA” tattoo, but because of the actor’s handwriting - he wrote, as Lioznova joked, like a chicken with its paw.
To Cuba with love
A fan of the film “Seventeen Moments of Spring” was Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who became acquainted with the film in a very unexpected way. He began to notice that several high-ranking officials were repeatedly taking time off from meetings and running home. When he asked them directly what was the matter, they explained to him that it was all about a Soviet television film about an intelligence officer working undercover in Nazi Germany: the tape was shown without repeating at a certain time. Then Castro, using his connections, requested a copy of the film about Stirlitz from the USSR and arranged a collective viewing of “Seventeen Moments of Spring” for all members of the government: all 12 episodes were shown in one evening, a total of 14 hours.
100 scout shirts
All the costumes in the film were sewn under the supervision of a consultant - a certain Colonel Brown, who at one time served in intelligence. Every detail, from shoulder straps to badges and buttonholes, was verified; the costumes were sewn by specialized “general” ateliers, which were tasked with dressing the actors impeccably. All the “clothing” props of the film barely fit into 60 large boxes, which took up three standard freight train cars. As eyewitnesses said, when all the extras were dressed in German “haute couture-USSR” uniforms, the Germans present on the set, who had once seen this with their own eyes, shuddered - everything was so realistic. By the way, as many as 100 white shirts were actually brought to the set in the GDR especially for Stirlitz - just in case, so that the Soviet intelligence officer would look perfect on the screen.
Presence effect
In the 1970s, color television already existed, although a television with such color reproduction was rare. Despite this, Tatyana Lioznova decided to shoot the film in black and white - for maximum resemblance to a documentary. The director made this decision also because the film contains many inserts with real documentary chronicles, and Lioznova did not want them to “stand out” from the visual range of the film and at least somehow affect the viewer’s “presence effect” in the film.
Stop the fascist!
The filming of “Seventeen Moments of Spring” was not without its funny moments. Thus, residents of East Berlin almost turned Vyacheslav Tikhonov over to the police. The actor, in a hurry to film, decided to dress in an SS uniform right in his hotel room and walk through the streets in a suit. But as soon as he appeared in public, indignant people began to surround him, mistaking him for a fascist (however, it is unclear where he came from - it’s 1970). Tikhonov was saved by the fact that, due to his lateness, assistant directors were sent after him, who had difficulty calming the public and, almost with a fight, took the would-be fascist to filming.
“Whose are you, fool?”
The famous scene where Stirlitz talks to the dog was improvised. During the filming of the car parking, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, as prescribed by the script, leisurely got out of the car, and at the same time a dog, which was walking with its owner nearby, ran up to him. The actor was not taken aback, sat down, extended his hand to the dog and, under the guns of the cameras, in the image of Stirlitz, asked: “Whose are you, you fool?” The dog poked into Tikhonov’s palm and began to caress. Tatyana Lioznova really liked this scene and decided to include it in the final edit of the film.
"Jolly Roger" and Lev Durov
Gestapo man Klaus, played by Lev Durov in the film, was supposed to die in the GDR, but they refused to let the actor go abroad. When Durov came to receive permission to leave, they began to ask him standard questions: describe the Soviet flag, tell us about the union republics... Durov, however, did not want to answer the questions, and instead of the Soviet flag he began to describe the pirate “Jolly Roger”, and as the capitals of the USSR mentioned London, Paris, Brussels and several other cities that were never even close to Soviet. As a result, Durov did not go to the GDR because of the wording “bad behavior,” and Klaus died somewhere in a forest near Moscow.
“Seventeen Moments of Spring” and the crime rate
“Seventeen Moments of Spring” literally from the moment of its premiere became a cult film in the USSR. The film was watched by a total of more than 200 million viewers. Moreover, according to the USSR State Television and Radio Broadcasting, exactly at the time when the show began, the streets of certain cities of the USSR were emptying, the consumption of water and electricity was decreasing, even the crime rate was falling - everyone was glued to the screens.
Kobzon who is not Kobzon
Muslim Magomayev, Valentina Tolkunova, Valery Obodzinsky and a number of other popular singers at that time wanted to perform songs for “Seventeen Moments of Spring,” but Tatyana Lioznova rejected almost all the candidates, with the exception of Joseph Kobzon. However, when meeting with the singer, Lioznova made a statement that was completely unexpected for Kobzon: his style of performance does not suit the film, and if he wants to sing, he will have to use a different timbre. Kobzon rewrote the famous composition “Don’t think down on the seconds” at least ten times - and each time in a different performance.
