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RUSSIAN BURIED
TREAUSURE
A HIDDEN ARCHIVE, BUILT OVER THIRTY
YEARS
By Evgueni Nagaitsev, Russian Producer,
Researcher & Archivist
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During 25 years of documentary films,
I've researched more than 100 films
and produced several educational films.
I'm very familiar with the collections
in the Russian State Archives, Krasnogorsk,
Gosfilmofond, the TV and Radio Fund,
the ministries, film studios and TV
companies, including those located
in the republics of the former Soviet
Union.
When Lenin said: "The most important
of all arts for us is cinematography,"
he was referring to the documentary
films and newsreels that were bundled
for audiences in propaganda-type communist
wrapping.
 Following
the leader's legacy, dozens (during
Stalin's times) and hundreds (during
Brezhnev's times) of film studios
and TV companies in all parts of the
vast Soviet state, day after day,
filmed communism's grandiose social
construction site, shooting millions
of metres of film.
When the Cold War ended, even this
edifice became just another chapter
in world history condemning thousands
of newsreels to the archive shelves.
It added to the huge archive brought
to the USSR in 1946-1948, as a trophy
from defeated Germany. This included
not only German but also French, British,
American, Polish, Czech, Italian,
Hungarian films and newsreels. The
Red Army also brought a valuable collection
of Japanese and Chinese films and
newsreels from Manchuria in 1945.
Among those topics on which I have
worked using the materials of the
Russian archives were the Civil War
in Russia, the Gulag, the testing
of Soviet rockets, leaders like Brezhnev,
Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Kaiser Wilhelm,
Hitler, Chang Kai Shek, Mao Tse Tung,
Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro.
During these years I was collecting
my own vast archive: more than 10,000
newsreels on 35 and 16 mm film and
around 1,000 hours of footage on Betacam
tapes. During communist times, one
could copy kilometres of archive film
from the state film archives: it was
very cheap. For each project I worked
on, I would copy much more material
than was ever used, by a factor of
tens or sometimes hundreds. Everyone
was doing it at that time; the prices
in the archives made it easier and
cheaper to copy the full reels, rather
than selected fragments. Some of the
films, for which vast archive film
material was selected and copied,
were even never finished, for various
reasons.
Collecting, not Burning
Back then it was the custom to destroy
the archive materials that were not
later included in the film, as well
as the materials of the unfinished
films. They were incinerated. While
everyone was burning them, I was collecting.
I also managed to obtain and preserve
in my archive extreme material even
on other projects, where friends or
colleagues were working and could
pass material on.
In the vast output of the time, the
circulation of each film involved
hundreds of copies, sent all over
the country to be shown in cinemas,
clubs and Houses of Culture, at schools,
universities and military camps, in
the pioneer camps, in the recreation
facilities and even on the long distance
ships. Before screening a feature
film, every venue had to play either
a newsreel or a short documentary
even though audiences preferred comedies
and melodramas and didn't want newsreels
crammed with propaganda. Projectionists
knew this and tried to indulge the
viewers' tastes so many copies of
these films were never shown; they
were perfectly preserved, even better
than copies of the same films kept
in the state archives! At the beginning
of the 90s when the system of the
Soviet film distribution crashed with
the empire, I saved hundreds of such
films from destruction.
I spent all my earnings expanding
my collection of documentaries and
newsreels, though I can't say the
cost was too high. Once, I bought
a whole collection of films -- several
dozen titles -- from one former director
of a cinema, for ten bottles of vodka.
He had to free up some storage space
as soon as possible because the place
was being converted to a furniture
showroom. Others would even give the
films away. I saved them from the
need to dispose of them.
The problem with this plan was that
I had to choose between an unexpected
opportunity to enlarge my collection
and the need to earn money to feed
my family. Luckily, the most valuable
part of my collection, I received
as an inheritance. Actually, this
legacy determined my fate as a collector
and researcher of archive film. My
maternal grandfather was the owner
of a small film distribution company
in the Far East of Russia where the
Soviets came to power only in 1922.
New Econimic Politics
At that time Russia was going through
the New Economic Politics (NEP) and
small entrepreneurs in Khabarovsk,
Vladivostok, Blagoveshensk, Nikolsk-Ussuriysk
were lucky to escape the Bolshevist
nationalisation and TcheKa requisitions
which had rolled through most of the
country in 1918. This distributor
stayed as a private concern until
1929, when my grandfather had to "voluntarily"
sign ownership over to the state.
He stayed as technical director until
1935, when he was forced to leave
everything behind and flee to Omsk
in Siberia with my grandmother, who
by that time already had five children.
A friend -- who worked in NKVD --
warned him that they were going to
come for him that night.
The family had occupied a two-storey
house: the first floor was the offices,
the second the living quarters for
the family; the films were kept in
the dry and cool stone cellar. In
1932, the Soviet authorities had built
a large new cinema in the town to
show October and Battleship Potemkin
together with other new Bolshevik
films. As the offices of the new nationalised
film distribution company were also
transferred into the theatre, the
huge basement of the cinema was equipped
for film storage. New "masterpieces"
were to be kept there, while the old
"rubbish"nobody needed anymore
remained in my grandfather's cellar.
There amazingly, it still is, several
thousand reels of well preserved films
of the pre-revolutionary Russia and
Soviet films of 1920s, including feature
films and newsreels that are not now
available from the state archives.
 Before
my grandfather fled to Omsk city,
his younger unmarried sister had lived
with his family. An invalid since
her childhood, her left foot dislocated,
she was seriously lame. She was no
threat to the Soviets so she was graciously
allowed to live in the cellar and
work as a cleaning lady in the offices
upstairs. Yet when she died in 1993
at the age of 97, sound of mind with
a clear memory, she had preserved
and transferred to me my grandfather's
heritage. He meanwhile, had perished
in 1943 in the concentration camps.
In 1939, when Beria became NKVD Chief,
the so-called "indulgence"
had been arranged. Some people were
released from the camps and allowed
to return from exile. My grandfather
decided to resettle in his hometown
with his family. The film distribution
company then hired him as a technician
and it's possible that one of his
duties, besides repairing the projector,
was destroying films. How else to
explain how several hundreds of boxes
full of films of the 1930s, containing
shots of "enemies of the people",
were later found in the cellar? After
his return from Omsk my grandfather
lived for only one more year in freedom,
for in 1940 he was arrested. In 1943,
a notification came of his death in
the camp. By now Grandmother was labouring
to raise seven children, one of whom
was my mother.
On my father's side, my grandfather
was a peasant from Altai, drafted
during World War 1 and promoted to
officer for heroism at the front.
The Civil War ended for him in Vladivostok
in 1922, when he'd made it to lieutenant
colonel.
Study of Cinematography
My father followed his lead and earned
his epaulets with his blood during
World War II, though he retired from
the army after the War. Never as successful
a military man as he would have liked,
after my mother's death, he sent me
to the Suvorov military school…
in reality, Stalin's cadet corps for
children between 11 and 18. However,
despite being a top cadet, I never
became an officer. Instead, as our
family council had decided to entrust
the grandfather's collection to me,
I went for a more humanitarian education
which included the study of cinematography.
In 1967, I came to Moscow and entered
the VGIK.
Today I still cannot name the place
where the main -- and most precious
-- portion of my collection is located.
I am not certain that the state which
killed my grandfathers and deprived
my parents of their right to receive
an education, condemning my family
to poverty and stripping them of all
their rights, would not try to seize
my material. In legal terms, according
to the Russian Law on Copyright of
1993 and the 1994 Civil Code, I am
the rightful owner with every right
to use it freely. However, I cannot
forget the fact that in Russia, where
the bureaucracy always stood and still
stands, above the law; it can crush
anyone at any time.
There are a lot of problems. Even
the footage that I keep in Moscow
has been only partially viewed and
the computer database covers just
a third of all material. Though it's
gradually expanding; the collection
is growing even faster. The Far Eastern
part of the collection has practically
not been catalogued yet. Yet to save
it, I bought the house that once belonged
to our family and now my relatives
live in it. For me, this is a guarantee
that some local authorities or bandits
cannot gain access to the cellar where
the films are stored, to create a
slot machine arcade or vodka bottling
facility. Of course, this is a temporary
solution. The collection has to be
moved to Moscow. While it is stored
in the Far East, it remains useless
to me. There's not even a film-to-video
transfer facility available to record
all the film archive to Betacam tapes
using professional equipment.
I do not know if I will ever manage
to solve this problem and gather all
my archive in one place under one
roof … I want to believe
Evgueni Nagaitsev, Russian Producer,
Researcher & Archivist
First published, Autumn, 2000
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Email: enagaitsev@kaleidoarchive.com
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