Published on: 2026-11-05
Source: Mosfilm Film Concern – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
The set occupies the entire length of Pavilion 9. From the many rooms of the dacha, the production designers selected those involved in the filming: the entrance area, the long corridor, the study, the bedroom, and the small dining room. A small section of the passage connecting the dacha with the guardhouse was even built: on the Near Dacha, the servants used the same passage to go back and forth and carry food from the kitchen. According to Sergey Fevralev, during the preparation stage, it was very important for the artists to visit Stalin’s real dacha.
“We had the opportunity to visit Stalin’s authentic dacha. Together with Irina Ochina, we conducted detailed measurements of all key rooms: we recorded the dimensions of all wall panels and panels, window openings, and ceiling heights. As a result, every panel in the corridor, office, and bedroom was calibrated according to the original,” says Sergey Fevralev.
However, as the artist emphasizes, the set for the feature film cannot be an exact copy—due to creative objectives. Furthermore, the current appearance of Stalin’s real dacha was acquired after renovations—the original blueprints of the pre-war house have not survived, and there are very few photographs from that period. Therefore, the layout was restored based on documents about the alterations, and some interiors were swapped around for filming convenience. The entrance area remained unchanged—it has survived to this day in its original form, just as it was built.
The furniture is reproduced as closely as possible to the original. Exact copies were made of the buffet from the office, the coat racks in the entrance area, the armchair, and the couch. The artists took detailed photographs of the upholstery fabric at the dacha along with the dimensions of the pattern, then printed the same fabric and upholstered the furniture with it. They also selected similar chandeliers.
Artists Sergey Fevralev and Irina Ochina on the set, construction in the 9th pavilion
A state-important building was constructed in the era of constructivism. The interiors of the house are neither palatial nor ceremonial, so the artists focused on the authenticity of the materials. The pinkish-yellow walls, light parquet, panels made from various types of wood are represented using veneers of the corresponding species. According to the decoration authors, they tried to capture, if not an exact copy of the space, then its exact feel and the status of the homeowner.
“Stalin’s dacha itself is already a good setting. The rooms are large, and he usually walked through them alone — this profound image of a person’s loneliness before a vast choice in this space is already evident. We only emphasized it on a very subtle level — through color, objects. Our task was not to lose this feeling of loneliness and emptiness in which he found himself at a difficult moment in history,” explains the production designer.
The only liberty taken was with the movie theater. The actual room turned out to be quite modest, and in the film it will look different. Exactly how, viewers will see on screen. A special pride of the creators’ decor is what lies outside the windows. Around the dacha there is a park where decorative trees stand alongside real ones, and the background is a three-dimensional backdrop, hand-painted! The height of the canvas is about eight meters, stretching the entire length of the pavilion with bends. Today, such an approach in cinema is a great rarity.
“This is an old Mosfilm technology, and I really love it. The fabric is stretched until it ‘rings,’ and then primed with a thick layer of paint mixed with chalk. The primer ‘kills’ all the seams, resulting in a smooth matte surface on the huge wall. This way, you exactly hit the horizon line, scale, and light. Printing on a banner always distorts the color: sometimes it shifts toward blue, sometimes toward green,” says Sergey Fevralev.
The matte surface does not glare under the lighting fixtures, and any weather can be “painted” on it. A gap is left between the background and the platform hiding the joint with the floor: equipment passes through it so that the lighting technicians can separately set the light for the background and foreground. The artists attribute the method of combining the picturesque and the volumetric to the tradition of famous panoramas — “The Battle of Borodino” and “The Defense of Sevastopol.”
Work in Pavilion 9 is being carried out by specialists from “Mosfilm-Dekorstroy.” Other objects will also appear in the comprehensive decoration, including a telegraph with a radio studio from which Joseph Stalin’s famous address to the Soviet people will be broadcast.
Construction of a set in the 9th pavilion of Mosfilm
Recall that the director of the film “Joseph Stalin. The Moment of Truth” (working title) is People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, General Director of the Mosfilm Film Concern, Karen Shakhnazarov. Executive producer — Galina Shadur. Director of photography — Semyon Kretov. Production designers — Sergey Fevralev and Irina Ochina. Costume designers — Dmitry Andreev and Vladimir Nikiforov. Makeup artists — Petr Gorshenin and Tatyana Melkomova. Casting director — Irina Lavrentyeva. Sound director — Vitaly Roshchupkin
“Joseph Stalin. The Moment of Truth” (working title) is a military-historical drama about the eve and the first weeks of the Great Patriotic War. June 1941. While Soviet schoolchildren prepare for their graduation, and their parents make plans for a peaceful life, virtuoso political intrigues unfold in the Kremlin offices, with Joseph Stalin at their epicenter. He is faced with making the most difficult decisions: despite reports and briefings, the USSR was not ready to confront Hitler and his powerful army, and the first brutal battles have already begun.
The film is being produced in two formats — a feature-length movie and a four-part series. The production is fully carried out by the Mosfilm Studio Complex for Channel One, where the project’s premiere will also take place.
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