Moscow Clad in Snow

Moscow Clad in Snow is a short documentary shot by the French Pathé Frères studio showing wintertime Moscow over a hundred years ago. In stunning quality for its time, the film gives a beautiful tour of several Moscow landmarks:

• View of the Kremlin from the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky (Marshal’s) Bridge
• Red Square, including St. Basil’s Cathedral
• Inside the Kremlin, including the Tsar Cannon and Tsar Bell
• A busy central Moscow street – intersection of Kuznetsky Most and Petrovka streets
• The Okhotny Ryad market with mushrooms and fish on sale
• Petrovsky Park in the north of the city
• An expansive view of Moscow taken from the Assumption Belfry inside the Kremlin

Moscow Clad in Snow gives a rare glimpse into everyday life in late-Imperial Russia. The Romanovs still rule Russia, horse-drawn carriages roam snow-covered streets, and people stare at cameras with an amusing curiosity.

The film was created as a sort of travelogue. It was marketed to French audiences as an exciting window into exotic Russia. Scenes of everyday life are intermingled with gorgeous panning shots of some of the famous sites of Moscow. All in all, this is an excellent early film that’s well worth the watch.

The Pathé Frères, or Brothers Pathe, studio originally titled this film, Moscou sous la neige. In Russian, its title is Москва в снежном убранстве. It’s one of the earliest films in Russian Film Hub’s Imperial Russian film collections.

• 1900s
• English subtitles
• Imperial Russia