Open-air old Russian museum: Moskino Cinema Park gets scenery for TV series about Princess Olga
Several sets of medieval cities have been built at Moskino Cinema Park to create an Old Russian City architectural ensemble spanning over 133,600 square meters to film the TV series Princess Olga.
Based on real events, it is a story of Grand Duchess Olga, the first ruler of Rus’ who was baptized in Christianity. The scenery brings the atmosphere of classical ancient Russian urban planning of the 9 th-10 th centuries. The builders made good use of the cinema park’s diverse landscape to erect bridges to enter the city and hills with an ancient city, small rivers and forest areas.
One can also find the prince’s court and chambers, stables, bathhouses, earth lodges, a fortress wall, barns, vegetable gardens and shopping arcades on the city square; there is also a site for storing materials and parking for the convenience of the filming process.
Designers have created an almost genuine farmstead, Iskorosten, the center of the Drevlyans, where Princess Olga used to rule. It features gates, the prince’s tower, earth lodges, semi-dugouts, sheds and cellars, a well, cattle pens, a barn, and a temple. There is also a recreated town of Vybuty (Olga’s birthplace). Some episodes will be filmed at natural locations in Vladimir and the Moscow region.
The Moskino Cinema Park is part of Sergei Sobyanin’s project Moscow as a Cinema City and the Moscow film cluster. To date, they have completed Stage I, including 18 location shoot sites, 4 pavilions and 6 infrastructure facilities, such as the sets Center of Moscow, Moscow in the 1940s, Vitebsky Station, Yurovo Airport, Cathedral Square of Moscow, Remote Village, Partisan Village, Fortress Wall, County Town, Cowboy Town, St. Petersburg Bar, etc.
Developed by the Moscow Government under the Moscow as a Cinema City project, the Moscow Film Cluster provides film producers with a variety of infrastructure facilities, services and tools and consists of the Moskino Film Park, three sites of Maxim Gorky Film Studio, Moskino cinema chain, Moskino Film Commission, and the Moskino film platform.