HISTORICAL BUILDINGS

1933-1936, 1966

WINTER HALL
State index: 1.6.178.3.1
Architects: Tiran Yerkanyan, Gevorg Kochar

Located at the intersection of Abovyan and Tumanyan streets. The cinema was built on the site of the St. Paul-Peter Church. The latter, in turn, was built in 1679 to replace the church of the same name, which was destroyed during the great earthquake in the Ararat Valley and was demolished in the 1930s. The project was designed for 1,400 seats (2×700) (Tiran Yerkanyan, Gevorg Kochar, 1933). The opening took place on December 12, 1936, with the screening of the first Armenian sound film, "Pepo".

The building consists of two perpendicular wings, which are connected on the second floor by a foyer. The cinema halls are located in the wings. The facades are faced with gray basalt and Noyemberyan felsite, decorated with themes of Soviet and Armenian films: bas-reliefs "Pepo", "David Bek", "Sayat Nova", "Chapaev", symbolic sculptures "Dance" and "Stage". In front of the building is Charles Aznavour Square, where in 1987 a pool with a fountain "Signs of the Zodiac" was built (architect: Arsen Melikyan, artist: Vladimir Atanyan). In 1978, the 11th All-Union Film Festival took place in the "Moscow" cinema. In the late 1990s, it was closed for renovation and reopened on September 3, 2000. The square's pool and fountain were renovated and reopened in 2010.

During the renovation in 2015, the screens of the large halls were renewed.

The Moscow Cinema remains one of the favorite places for Yerevan residents, where in addition to showing films, various events are organized. The Moscow Cinema is one of the first examples of two-hall cinemas in Soviet architecture. In the architecture of the building, the planning and compositional principles of functional architecture (volume graphics, staircases, large openings, diamond-shaped windows) are combined with elements of classical architecture (piers, main facade porch).

The summer hall of the Moscow cinema was built behind the main building, the winter hall, on the Tumanyan Street side, and was restored in the 1980s. Previously, the first summer hall of the cinema has not been preserved (architect: Sahakanush Manusadjyan).

The open-air hall is two-level: on the first level are located the ticket office and the summer cafe, and on the second - the foyer, the audience seating and the cinema screen, which, thanks to the correct design, are removed from the street. The structure is made of reinforced concrete, plastered with gray cement mortar, has colored paving stones and a decorative pool with a fountain with a mosaic by Hovhannes Minasyan. The Summer Hall is a valuable example of modernism, whose authors Spartak Kntekhtsyan and Telman Gevorgyan were awarded the Alexander Tamanyan Prize in 1967.