Behind the scenes of the film "Spring on Zarechnaya Street": Who was Nikolai Rybnikov's mentor, and who of the actors met their fate on the set

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

65 years ago, directors Marlen Khutsiev and Felix Mironer began work on the film Spring on Zarechnaya Street, which became their trademark and was very popular with viewers. Filming took about two years, and during this time many interesting events happened, about which another film could be shot. So, for example, Nikolai Rybnikov learned the basics of the profession from a steelmaker from Zaporozhye, who became a mentor and friend of the actor for many years.

Filming began in Zaporozhye in 1953. They took place at the Zaporizhstal and Dneprospetsstal plants. In order for Nikolai Rybnikov to look believable in the guise of a worker, he was sent to the factory, where he worked as a steelmaker's assistant and spent 8 hours a day at the open-hearth furnaces. His mentor was a 23-year-old boy, Grigory Pometun, who had already become an honorary metallurgist for overfulfilling the annual plan. Although all the characters and storylines in the script were fictional, it was Grigory Pometun who is called the prototype of Sasha Savchenko, since he helped Nikolai Rybnikov to create this image in many ways, and the director asked the actor to imitate his demeanor and even gait.

Later, Grigory Konstantinovich told reporters more than once about how the work on the film went: "".

The young guy was chosen as a mentor to the actor so that they quickly find a common language, and so that Rybnikov did not hesitate to ask him about all the details of the production process. Their external resemblance was so noticeable that the steelmaker was sometimes even confused with the famous actor. Once, during a trip to the cities of Siberia, one of the officials approached Grigory Pometun and, seeing his star of the Hero of Socialist Labor, asked: "Nikolai Nikolaevich, when was this Hero given to you?" They communicated with Rybnikov both in their free time from filming, and after their completion - every time the actor came to Zaporozhye for the Day of Metallurgist, he went to visit a friend. They talked until the artist's death. Honored steelmaker of Ukraine Grigory Pometun has worked in the open-hearth shop of Zaporizhstal for 35 years.

Schools for young workers really existed then, and many workers came there for classes after their shift. One of the teachers of the 4th school of working youth, Svetlana Kositsyna, said that she taught the actress Nina Ivanova to conduct a dictation. One day she came to her lesson and watched the work of the teacher. The class was filmed in the same school, and the teacher's room was filmed in the neighboring secondary school No. 47.

The winter of 1953 turned out to be almost snowless, and according to the script it was necessary to shoot a blizzard and snow-covered streets. For this purpose, they brought the fuselage of a "maize" without wings and with a propeller. Snow was collected from all over the area and thrown onto the propeller, it spun the flakes and created the illusion of a real blizzard. In the Energetikov Park, where one of the episodes was filmed, there was very little snow, and it was collected throughout the park and carried to the steps, where the heroine of Nina Ivanova had to slip and fall. We managed to shoot several scenes on one of the days when it really started snowing in Zaporozhye.

Many residents of Zaporozhye were sure that the shooting really took place on Zarechnaya Street. But in those days, the street with such a name did not exist yet - it appeared after the release of the film. Recently, two monuments were erected in the city to the hero of Rybnikov Sasha Savchenko and one to the heroine of Nina Ivanova, teacher Tatyana Sergeevna. And the lovers' clock on Shevchenko Boulevard beats the melody of the song “When spring comes - I don’t know”, which has become the unofficial anthem of the city.

This film became the film debut of classmate directors Marlen Khutsiev and Felix Mironer. Khutsiev told: "".

Nina Ivanova and Nikolai Rybnikov portrayed a couple in love so convincingly that the audience was sure that they actually had an affair. However, in reality, they did not arouse sympathy for each other - Rybnikov spent all his free time from filming with his wife Alla Larionova, and Nina Ivanova really met her fate on the set. But it was not an actor, but a cameraman Radomir Vasilevsky, with whom they got married after the end of filming. The authors of the picture at meetings with the audience told: "".

The film premiered in 1956, and the color version of the hit movie, which has not lost its popularity, was released in 2010. In the year of its release, the film became the leader of the box office - then it was watched by more than 30 million people. According to a survey of Internet users, "Spring on Zarechnaya Street" entered the top 100 best Russian films.

After the premiere, Nina Ivanova became a real star, but her film career soon ended: Why the star of the film "Spring on Zarechnaya Street" disappeared from the screens.