Точка

Date of Creation:	1968
Author:	Ivan Tikhonovich, Evgeny Alekseevich Zaitsev
Theme:	Nature/fauna, Children/Pioneers
Technology:	Mosaic, Stained glass
Object:	Cinema
Accessibility:	Available
Location:	Minsk
Coordinates:	53.899519,27.5631014
Condition:	Good

Cinema "Pioneer"

For a long time, the Pioner cinema was considered the largest children's cinema in the BSSR. The cinema, designed by Grigory Zaborsky and Leonid Levin, opened in 1966 on Engels Street. The building is an excellent example of early Soviet modernist architecture with a large open space and continuous glazing, through which one can see the inner foyer with mosaics and a winter garden.
Initially it was planned to make two cinema halls, but the architects changed the project, so the building became a puppet theatre. The division into theatre and cinema is noticeable by the stained glass on the facade: the part depicting fairy-tale characters belongs to the theatre, the smiling Gagarin is the territory of the cinema.
Inside, in the foyer of the Pioner cinema, there is a large mosaic panel ‘Happy Childhood’, a winter garden, a decorative lattice and a swimming pool. The authors of the mosaic are the artists Ivan Tikhonov and the Belarusian classicist Yevgeny Zaitsev, who once studied in Chagall's art workshops. The mosaic features happy children from different countries and continents, animals and a female figure resembling the goddess of fertility Demeter.