The neighborhood of Yerord Mas (Third District) was built in the 1930’s mostly for the workers of newly arising soviet industrial enterprises. Those red buildings were the first serious residential development in the city. It is one of the most illustrious and lively neighborhoods of Yerevan. The residents of this neighborhood are one of the few honored with numerous anecdotes and jokes.

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“My grandmother who was also Arshak’s aunt lived there, my parents and I were born there,” says the co-producer and co-writer Gevorg Mirzoyan. “And when he told me that we have to find a location that is not much changed from the soviet times, I remembered the old good Yerord Mas. He jumped and said ‘Remember those red buildings, with diamond-shaped staircase windows? Do you remember where they are?’ In April we shot the opening sequence of the film there. That sequence was very helpful for ourselves to define the mood we wanted to achieve in the movie. Later we used to show it to the actors, and it worked brilliantly for themselves too to define their characters”.

Ara adds: “In June we already had our agreements with the actors but we couldn’t find a good home for Simon. One evening me and Arshak wandered to a street in Yerord Mas called Brotherhood Street. We were joking that only here a street with a name like that could exist. We were asking people for a first flour apartment to rent. Arshak was a little shy so I was doing the most of the talking. Finally near the last building of the street we saw an old woman with little kids around her. When we told her what we wanted, she asked why we needed that apartment. We said we wanted it for a movie. Then she told us that her apartment is perfect for us and is empty at the daytime, she is doing babysitting for her grandchildren and they are being out to the park most of the time. So she offered us to shoot at her apartment, at daytime, before her husband, daughter and son-in-law returned from work. Apartment was perfect; lot of things seemed to be untouched from the 70’s. And though it was somewhat risky, we  decided it was just what we wanted. We began shooting in July. We used to come here at the mornings, decorate the room, do our work; then at evenings we would hide our costumes, props and lighting equipment in the closets and under the furniture, and go home. Everything worked fine. Only those kids were very curious about our work and used to pop into the frame sometimes, from left, right, bottom and even the top. But it wasn’t much of a problem. We used to bribe them with chocolate.”



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