One of the most powerful, touching and popularly beloved films about the Great Patriotic War - the drama by Stanislav Rostotsky "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" - impresses not only with a poignant plot and unforgettable characters. In the memory of everyone who has looked at the legendary picture, there are picturesque landscapes: a calm and majestic forest, a transparent river in the rays of the sun, a remote village. The film was filmed on location in 1972 in the Republic of Karelia.
Boris Vasiliev, the author of the book of the same name, based on which the film was shot, does not name the exact place where the events described took place. But the Kirov railway mentioned in the story and a number of other points allow us to conclude that we are talking about Karelia. It was there that the picture was filmed. The shooting took place near the Ruskeala waterfalls on the Tokhmajoki river, in the village of Syargilakhta in the Pryazha region, as well as in the pavilions of Mosfilm.
Swimming in Tohmajoki
There are three lowland waterfalls on the Tohmajoki River, a few kilometers from the Ruskeala village. The most beautiful of them is Ahvenkoski, which means “perch rapids” in Finnish. It was there that the bathing scene of the beauty Zhenya Kamelkova, the heroine of Olga Ostroumova, was filmed.
Tohmajoki is translated from Finnish as "Raging River". It originates in Finland, flows through the Sortavala region of Karelia and flows into Lake Ladoga.
Filming took place in May, when the water was still icy. According to the plot of the film, German saboteurs who secretly entered the Karelian forests tried to cross the river in order to get to the railway and blow it up. Sergeant Major Vaskov, along with five female anti-aircraft gunners, tracked down the enemy. They began to cut trees to convince the Germans that a large team of lumberjacks was working in this wilderness, and to force the saboteurs to take a longer route. But the Nazis nevertheless decided to cross the channel unnoticed, and then the brave Zhenya with a cheerful cry rushed into the water, frightening the scouts.
Quiet Dawns in Syargilakht
The old Karelian village of Syargilakhta is part of the Essoil rural settlement of the Pryazhinsky national region of Karelia. Its name, translated from Karelian, means “bay with roach”. This picturesque place is famous not only for the fact that the shooting of the famous military drama "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" took place here and the film crew lived here.
Later, in the nineties, another film was shot here, this time in Finnish. The documentary "The Last Karelians" is dedicated to the old residents of the village of Syargilakhta.
The small village is a complex architectural monument. Ancient houses, barns, baths have been preserved in it, and in the middle of Syargilakhta there is an ancient chapel of the Savior, built in the second half of the 18th century. Now there are few permanent residents in the village, it is gradually becoming a place for summer cottages and tourist recreation.
