Cinema Belarus, Movie theater in central Minsk, Belarus
Cinema Belarus is a movie theater in central Minsk featuring five screening halls with seating capacities ranging from 145 to 280. The venue provides modern equipment including 3D projection and Dolby sound in select halls, along with comfortable high-backed chairs spaced generously throughout the rows.
The original cinema of the same name, built in 1961, stood empty for eight years before demolition. A new building was designed in 2004–2006 by a team from the Belproekt institute — V. B. Kutska, A. I. Chyzhyk and A. V. Ryiauba — and constructed in 2006–2008. It reopened on 12 September 2008, the eve of the city's Day, and President Alexander Lukashenko visited on opening day. From 1997 a team led by architect Leonard Moskalevich had planned a Museum of Modern Fine Arts on the site, approved by the government, but the Ministry of Culture never began work.
The cinema's name, "Belarus," matches the country's name and was carried over from the 1961 theater it replaced. It is owned by the municipal unitary enterprise Kinovideoprokat of the Minsk City Executive Committee. In 2016 it drew 697,797 spectators, making it Minsk's most visited cinema.
The cinema is at Romanovskaya Sloboda Street 28, with a nearby car park of 40 spaces; a planned two-level underground garage for 200 cars, entered from Romanovskaya Sloboda and exiting onto Rakovskaya Street, was never described as built. The five halls seat 280, 221, 169, 197 and 145 people, so check which hall a screening uses. The projection booth sits at +4.2 m and can run the same film in all five halls or a different film in each.
The projection booth sits at +4.2 m in the centre, with all five halls arranged around it; its computer system can run the same film in all five halls at once or a different film in each. The building was originally planned as a six-hall complex for 1,500 visitors, and in 2016 the cinema drew 697,797 spectators, the most in Minsk.
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