Back at the Soviet times cinema was one of the few attractions for people. Every movie, doesn't matter what it was about or how good was it directed and played, was a success. There was only a few movies created every year, and of course no foreign movies were alloud. Tourist who taking tours to Russia today would never be able to see it. Lines in a movie theaters were much longer then the movie last itself. But if you were be able to get inside, sit, and actually watch the movie you would be the happy man who will be telling stories about it to friends and grandparents.
In 90th situation change, foreign and especially Holywood movies floated Russian market. Russian government, lifestyle, Russian currency and market have collapsed. Russian cinema lost in a changed conditions and it took more then a decade to start functioning again on competitive level. The understanding of other countries that were isolated from people inside Soviet Union for 70 years came from movies.
Today movie culture is Russia is strong. Hundreds of movie theaters located in cities, thouthands of movies are shown each year. Movies of Russian production are very popular among nation, and are succesfull with critics around the globe. Last year, for the first time in history, Russian director was invited to shoot a movie in Holywood. Russian actors become well know and now it is common to see an actor who just ten years ago was selling souvenirs for to tourist stayed in Moscow hotels in Red Square staring in a 100 million dollars movie.
