Description:

The only surviving scene of what would have been the first Soviet animated feature, with music by Dmitriy Shostakovich.

Based on Pushkin's The Tale of the Priest and His Workman Balda, this scene would have been at the beginning of the film before either of the main characters are introduced. The production started in 1933, and it seems that the above fragment was made in the later half of that year (Shostakovich got the detailed musical script for the scene on May 31).

By October 1934, the first reel of the film (~10-11 minutes) was done, and work began on the second. It seems that at the end of 1936, the contract for the film was cancelled and the mostly-completed film (4 reels, or about 40-45 minutes) was placed in storage in the Lenfilm archives. It was completely destroyed in 1941 in a fire caused by the German bombing of Leningrad, all except for the "Bazaar" scene which had been kept at home by the director's wife. This scene was first shown in 1967 at the Moscow International Film Festival, two years after the director's death, and also inside the Soviet pavilion at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition (Expo 67) in Montreal.

The original screenplay can be read here. A lot of surviving artwork from the film can be viewed here (in the gallery at the bottom).

The second video file above is a shorter clip that comes from the documentary В поисках утраченной "Почты".