Foreign Films That Featured Russia's Pomorie Region
There aren«t many films where foreign characters end up in Pomorie, but they are quite colorful.
Arkhangelsk Oblast has become a place where films and TV shows are eagerly shot, and the residents of Pomorie themselves regularly appear on television screens. Moreover, there have been cases where the region was even shown in foreign films. We found several such films — here«s what they»re about.
James Bond attaches explosives inside the plant in Arkhangelsk.
«GoldenEye» (12+)
Inside the chemical plant.
Surprisingly, James Bond once visited Arkhangelsk! This happened in the 17th film of the Bond series, when the famous English spy was played by Pierce Brosnan.
The blown-up plant, with mountains around it that aren«t in Arkhangelsk.
The plot is directly connected to Pomorie: in 1986, Agent 007 and his partner must blow up a chemical plant near a dam (!) in Arkhangelsk. In the end, the companion is killed, and Bond blows up the plant earlier than planned and escapes a second before the explosion. But this is only the beginning of the film.
That very «Arkhangelsk» dam.
Nine years later, Bond returns to Russia, but to Siberia and St. Petersburg, to thwart a local mafia that has taken over the government project «GoldenEye» — satellites that disable all electronics at the target point.
A street in Arkhangelsk shown in the film.
Of course, no filming took place in Pomorie itself. For example, the dam from which Agent 007 jumps onto the roof of the chemical plant in Arkhangelsk at the beginning of the film is a dam in Sweden. However, several scenes were indeed shot in St. Petersburg.
The barracks where the main character settles. At the entrance — something like a sculpture or a snow figure.
«Archangel» (18+)
This, of course, hardly resembles the south of Arkhangelsk Oblast.
A surreal experimental film that you wouldn«t recommend to every viewer. The action takes place in 1919 during the intervention of Western troops in the »Arkhangelsk region«.
The famous scene: Major Kong falls from the plane riding on a bomb. Below — supposedly the missile complex of Kotlas.
A one-legged Canadian lieutenant, John Boles, whose girlfriend recently died, arrives in Arkhangelsk and settles in the home of a northern family. Here, he falls in love with Veronkha, who strongly reminds him of his deceased beloved. He interacts with the locals, receives an artificial leg as a gift, fights Bolsheviks, and in the end leaves the city and returns home to Canada. It seems rather gloomy, but in fact, the plot doesn«t lack humor.
Would you like to see Arkhangelsk as a huge bulldozer?
Despite the film being released in 1990, it is made in the style of black-and-white cinema from the early 20th century. It is not silent — actors speak here, but information is often conveyed through titles, and everything is shot very intimately, without grandeur. Therefore, Arkhangelsk as a city is shown little — almost all scenes take place indoors.
Robinson returned home via Arkhangelsk, but this wasn«t shown in the films.
«Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb» (12+)
In this famous anti-militarist satirical film by Stanley Kubrick, there is no Arkhangelsk, but Kotlas is mentioned. According to the plot, the commander of a U.S. Air Force base, General Jack D. Ripper, sends a squadron of bombers to bomb the USSR. Efforts are made to save the situation, but unsuccessfully — everything ends in nuclear war.
Over Arkhangelsk Oblast in the film, Major Kong«s plane flies — due to a fuel leak, it cannot reach the main target of the flight, and the crew decides to strike the nearest Soviet missile complex — which, according to the film, is located in Kotlas. During the bomb bay release, it jams, and the major personally fixes the mechanism while riding on one of the bombs, then flies down with it.
Unfilmed
It would be interesting to see the continuation of the film «Mortal Engines» (12+). This post-apocalyptic blockbuster from 2018 tells of huge cities traveling the world literally on wheels (well, not literally — they have huge tracks) and capturing resources from each other. The film is based on the book by Philip Reeve, which has sequels. In the second part, there is Arkhangelsk (in the first, it is only mentioned, in the Russian dub it was translated as «Archangel») — one of the mobile predator cities that symbolizes Russia. But the second film was never made.
Pomorie could also have been shown in one of the adaptations of «Frankenstein». The fact is that the novel begins with a ship sailing from Russia to the North Pole — in the first chapters, St. Petersburg and Arkhangelsk are mentioned. Later, the travelers get stuck in the Arctic ice, meet Dr. Frankenstein and his created creature. So, the capital of Pomorie could well have appeared here.
It would be nice to see Arkhangelsk in adaptations of other classics — for example, the novel «The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe», in which the famous traveler visited Russia. This continuation of the first novel is less known, but it is thanks to it that a monument to Robinson appeared in Arkhangelsk.
About Other Films
Also read about what films were shot about Arkhangelsk Oblast in Russia, and in which pictures actors from Pomorie starred.
We regularly write about modern films and series being worked on in the region. See which ones were shot in 2024, and which — in 2025.
By the way, recently in a small village in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, a new film was shot with the star of «Anora» (18+) Mark Eidelstein.
Last year in Arkhangelsk, the comedy «Po-bratski» (16+) was shown, which was shot in Pomorie in the spring of 2025. Residents shared their opinions about the film, and it was also watched by a journalist from 29.RU.
