Premiere "Dom" Broadcasts

Dom was intended to be a series of 40  fifty-minute dramatic programs (tele-roman or television novel) in which various economic topics are embedded including defense industry conversion; privatization of real estate; startup of new enterprises; the workings of markets for goods, labor, capital, and foreign exchange; and fighting the Mafia. The characters are all drawn from well-known Russian classic novels and short stories. Ten episodes were produced by the Russian firm Message Agency, led by Matvey Saprykin, and were broadcast by Russia's premier private television station, NTV, in December 1995. Insufficient international and Russian funding was available to continue the production and broadcast of the remaining 30 episodes originally envisaged.

Initiated with project preparation funds from the World Bank's Russia Management and Financial Training Project, Dom was produced by some of Russia's leading scriptwriters, producers, directors, and cinematographers. Dom is more than a Russian soap opera. Dom is great entertainment, and quality television which may well be exportable beyond the Russian-speaking world of the former Soviet Union.

But more than this, Dom seeks to educate Russians about the workings of the market economy, build hope in the country's renaissance as a market democracy, encourage privatization and the establishment of legitimate business enterprises, and fight the criminal structures which have become an international as well as a Russian menace.

The project was endorsed by a number of Russia's leading economists, including Economy Minister and Member of the Board of the National Training Foundation, Yvgeny Yasin; Deputy Economy Minister and Chairman of the Board of the National Training Foundation, Sergey Vasiliev; and Chairman of the State Duma's Economic Committee, Sergey Glasiev. (These were the posts occupied by the persons mentioned in 1995.)

Funding from a Japanese project preparation grant paid for the preparation and translation into English of a synopsis of the entire series, and the writing of the first three scripts by a team of scriptwriters headed by an internationally famous Russian scriptwriter, Alexander Adabashian, contracted by the Russian television production company Message Agency.

Additional grant funding was provided by World Bank's Electronic Media Center (EMC), led by Peter Knight, the Eurasia Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Contacts with potential co-producers (the Mexican company Televisa, and the BBC), a number of bilateral and private foundations, and with leading Russian television broadcasters were made with direct EMC support. EMC also obtained help in incorporating more economic concepts into the scripts from Paul Solmon (WGBH, Boston) and Nicole Reindorf (WGBH, Boston).

The Russian private television broadcasting company NTV (Independent Television) contributed significant financial resources toward production costs in return for premier broadcast rights, and in-kind contributions have been received from a variety of Russian and foreign firms. The Government of Moscow also invested in Dom, donating a top-of-the-line new Betacam SP television camera.

Production of the series began April 1, 1995. In March 1995 the "Dom" project was the subject of two important favorable articles in major Moscow newspapers and there has been more recent Russian media coverage.

Scripts for the first 16 episodes were completed, well-known Russian actors hired, sets constructed in Gorki Film Studios, and filming of the first ten episodes was concluded on September 14.

The premiere broadcast in Russia of the first ten episodes by the Russian private television broadcasting company NTV (Independent Television) began on December 4 and continued through December 15, 1995, in one-hour prime time slots beginning at 10:40 PM immediately after its popular evening news program, "Sgodnia" ("Today"). Each episode is approximately 50 minutes long, leaving time for commercials or public service announcements. A one-hour program about "Dom" was broadcast on MTK (Channel 3, Moscow Government Channel) at 8:00 PM prior to the last broadcast. "Dom" was seen as a major cultural event, important in the rebirth of the Russian film industry.

Credits to all the major sources of finance, including international sources (the Eurasia Foundation, the World Bank, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York) are provided at the end of each episode along with the Russian sources.

VHS copies of the first ten episodes were received by EMC, and the quality is excellent. PAL and NTSC copies can be made available for review.

The Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission expressed interest in supporting the second ten episodes, which would include messages on health and environmental issues. EMC has financed the work of an advisory committee of Russian environmental experts and the writing of three of these scripts.

 For more information, please contact Peter Knight  or Matvey Saprykin.

See "Dom"—Russian Dramatic TV Serial, Episodes 11-40, and Recent Russian Media Coverage of ""Dom" for more details.

Here are some scenes from the first episode:

Kidnapping of Russian banker, Victor Lopakhin, who was seeking to organize a condominium and privatize Dom, a Stalinist skyscraper apartment on the Moscow River. The mafia wants to turn it into a hotel-casino.

False policeman Vovo warns Lopakhin's  friend, Peter Chatsky, former dissident and Afghan war veteran, now visiting Russia to report on mafia activity, who unknowingly filmed the kidnapping en route from the airport.

Pavel Korchagin (left), director of a  military-industrial complex firm who workers are  threatening a strike because they have not been paid for months, discusses banker Lopakhin's  disappearance with his son, Vasily, a failing and dishonest businessman.

Tenants of Dom discuss the return of Peter Chatsky, who stays in his friend Lopakhin's apartment.

Rakmetov (building superintendent), Chelkash (a derelict), and Chatsky

The sisters Prozerev, tenants of communal apartment in Dom.

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