The famous Gatchina Palace near St. Petersburg is now a stage for shooting Bollywood’s «Cobra» starring Indian superstar Vikram.
Don’t forget to scroll down till the end of the post to see the list of Hollywood movies shot in St. Petersburg and a video of incredible Pierce Brosnan in a Russian tank rushing through the city’s downtown.
Gatchina is a town within one hour by car, by rail, or bus from St. Petersburg. The former Romanov’s Imperial residence is home to a splendid and very big palace having a great park and an underground passage with a taste of mystic. Shadowed by the Hermitage and Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, it’s nonetheless enjoying increasing attention from tourists thanks to its splendid interiors and insight into the everyday life of Russia’s ruling family.
Not surprisingly, the marvelous palace has attracted the attention of filmmakers who valued the opportunity to make some scenes here.
Even though the action of Andjay Gnanamuthu’s «Cobra» takes place also in Russia, along with Great Britain and France, Gatchina «plays» the role of not Russia, as you may think, but… Scotland. The director liked two of Gatchina’s features: its botanic gardens and the palace’s underground passage (you see it in the photo). A pursuit in the movie starts in the passage and continues in the gardens that «play» the role of Scottish mountains.
The passage is also a stage for fighting and one more scene, that’s kept in secret until the Cobra’s release, Gatchina museum’s press service said.
The underground passage. Photo https://vk.com/gatchina.palace
What’s the most interesting is the number of roles Vikram has in the film. We’ve got accustomed to the formula «one actor = one role». But that’s not the case. Vikram = 8 roles. At least, in «Cobra». Thanks to sophisticated make-up, the spectators will hardly know that all these eight characters are played by a single man.
Vikram left a note in the museum’s guestbook. You will read it below with keywords being «wonderful experience», «history», «romanticism», and, of course, «thank you»:
Vikram left a note in the museum’s guestbook. Photo https://vk.com/gatchina.palace
No wonder, Gatchina’s residents as well as many other Russian will be waiting for «Cobra’s» premiere scheduled for April 2021.
The Indian cinema was extremely popular in the USSR, in the period from the 60s to the late 80s. Long queues were standing to cinemas to watch Pyaar Karke Dekho, Khoon Bhari Maang, Seeta Aur Geeta, Disco Dancer, Kasme Vaade (the leader among foreign films in the USSR in box office in 1978), Tridev, or Taqdeer.
Love, passion, revenge, exotic dances, unbelievable landscapes, a superb approach to plotting and shooting, all these factors as well as the deficit of overseas cinema in the Soviet Union came into play to create these queues.
In the 90s, with arrivals of great amounts of Hollywood products after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain, separating the country from the West, this popularity was in decline. But Indian films still have their audience in Russia.
St. Petersburg was home to many scenes in Hollywood films. We listed a few of them.
Onegin (1999), director Martha Fiennes, starring Ralph Fiennes, Liv Tyler, Lena Headey;
The Mechanik (2015), director Dolph Lundgren, starring Dolph Lundgren, Ben Cross;
The Russia House (1990), director Fred Shepisi, starring Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer, Roy Scheider;
Downfall (German: Untergang) (2004), director Oliver Hirschbiegel, starring Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes;
GoldenEye (1995), director Martin Campbell, starring Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco. So, see Brosnan driving a Russian T-55 tank, «strolling» through the streets of St. Petersburg and leaving destruction in its path. Cars are also those you still come across in today’s Russia.
