Moscow Cinema - Yerevan

On December 12,1936 the opening of "Moscow" cinema with the screening of ''Pepo'' the first armenian sound movietook place. For modern «Yerevantsi» it is difficult to imagine, that instead of the building of the cinema there once used to be St. Paul and Peter Church,and there was a Russian Churchinstead of Stanislavski Theatre, and in the neighbourhood of all this there was a mosqueinstead of the Union of Artists.
Over time, the reconstruction of the city totally distroyed the magnificent architectural designswhich were being built for over 16 centuries, especially after the victory of Bolshevism and the "Cultural Revolution". Among them was also St. Paul and Peter Church.In the 1930s the church was destroyed. Instead of it the building of the cinema was built, afterwards called "Moscow". The architects of the building were Tiran Yerkanian and Gevorg Kochar. After the construction of the building it has been reconstructed many times, in 1960 by the design project of Gevorg Kochar and Telman Gevorgyan, in 1983, by the architects B.Arzumanyan, Z.Zakaryan, A.Israyelyan, A. Melikyan. The facade of the building is decorated with the symbolic sculptures of well-known Soviet films "Chapaev", "Pepo", "Davit Bek", "Sayat-Nova" "Dancing" and "Stage".
After the privatization of the cinema it was closed for a year and reopened in September,  2000.  The fountain next to the cinema was renovated and reopened in 2010.
During the Soviet Union the selection of films was not under the jurisdiction of the Directorate of the cinema.  Soviet Union film committee was making decision how many examples of films to send to the republics.There was also a Republican  film committee which had  ''The Department of the showlist of films". It was planning the sequence of films in the theaters of that area. Now the "Moscow" cinema film selection is done by the employees of the organization. Movie Theater collaborates with a number of well-known companies - The Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures,  Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox,  DreamWorks, Universal Studios, Warner Bros, including the best worldwide filmsin the film showlist. Film showlist changes pretty often, every Thursday there is a premiere of a new movie, sometimes several movie premieres are released at a time.In addition to foreign films, armenian films also form an integral part of the showlist of films in the cinema,  which are rather large in number during recent years. Besides, the audienceis much more interestedin local products.
Now Cinema has four halls, the "Red" hall - 491 seats, the "Blue" hall - 350 seats, "Red" small hall - 49 seats, "Videohall" -  35 seats. The halls are equipped with modern technics.
In parallel with film screenings "Moscow" cinema organizes various events and festivals. Some of them include "Golden Apricot" Yerevan International Film Festival, "British Film Festival", "Rolan'' International Film Festival", "ReAnimania"  International Animation Film Festival of Yerevan, as well as screenings of Japanese, Indian, French and other films.Moreover, various events undertaken by differente mbassies are organizedhere. In parallel with film screenings different exhibitions are organizedin the waiting hall of the cinema.
Since December 2014, ''Moscow'' cinema together with cult.am cultural portal has begun to implement online ticketing, in 2015 renewed the  screens of big halls, developed a new logo and corporate style of the cinema, it also launched a new official website.
Preserving the history of decades and beautiful traditions, the cinema is always in  progressive stage, ready to face today's challenges.