Lenfilm is Russia's oldest film studio and still a working production site, so you cannot simply wander in. What you can do is join a guided tour: they run every day, start around lunchtime and finish in the evening, which makes the studio a good plan for late October and November, when it gets dark early and the weather rarely invites a long walk. In an hour you are taken through displays of costumes, props and sets; the longer programmes add a make-up workshop, immersive exhibitions or a walk around the Petrograd Side (Petrogradskaya storona).
On 19 October 2026 we checked the studio's own website and Yandex Maps for what is actually running now: tour formats, length and prices, the meeting point, who will be turned away, and how to combine the studio with a walk around the neighbourhood. One thing first: every programme is listed in Russian only, so if you don't speak Russian, ask by phone whether an English-speaking guide is possible before you buy.
🎬 What Lenfilm is and what you see inside
The studio is at 10 Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, about five minutes from Gorkovskaya metro (320 metres, according to Yandex Maps). The main building is the yellow one with white columns at the far end of the little square. Lenfilm likes to remind visitors that the first film screening in Russia took place on its grounds, in the former Aquarium theatre, which is now its Pavilion No. 4.
Today the studio has four sound stages, make-up rooms, an equipment base, a vast wardrobe of period costumes and a props collection that runs from cutlery to weapons and vintage cars. The tours take you through exhibitions about how films are made: furnished rooms from film sets, costumes, scale models, picture cars. A separate space, "Lenfilm. War in Cinema" (Voyna v kino), covers the studio's war films and is also seen as part of a tour.
A furnished room from a film set in the Lenfilm exhibition — Photo: GAlexandrova, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
🎟 The overview tour: one hour for 650 roubles
The main option for individual visitors is the 60-minute overview tour of the studio. It runs daily, starting at 12:30, 14:00, 15:00, 16:00, 17:30 and 19:00. A ticket costs 650 roubles, or 550 at the reduced rate. A group needs at least five people to go ahead. If you want a guide to yourselves, the private format costs 1,300 roubles per person for four people or more.
Two exhibitions are currently included in the overview ticket. "Aquarium Kino!" marks 130 years since the first public film screening in Russia and is shown every day except Monday. Since 16 October it has been joined by an exhibition on the Soviet Sherlock Holmes series, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson", timed to the 95th anniversary of director Igor Maslennikov and 45 years since "The Hound of the Baskervilles". The cases hold genuine items from the shoot, Moriarty's and Mrs Hudson's costumes, the famous violin, and a map of thirty St Petersburg addresses that played London on screen.
There are also free tours of the Sherlock exhibition, by phone booking only: Mondays at 11:00 and 19:00, Sundays at 11:00 and 17:00, groups of up to 25. Latecomers are not admitted.
Scale model of a fairy-tale castle in the Lenfilm exhibition — Photo: GAlexandrova, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
🎭 Longer programmes: make-up, immersive shows, a TV studio
If an hour feels short, the studio's website lists two-hour programmes that add something to the overview:
- "World of Lenfilm" (Mir Lenfilma) — the tour plus the immersive exhibition "Lost in the Newsreels", 120 minutes, Fridays to Sundays and during school holidays. 1,150 roubles, reduced 950, minimum seven people.
- "Cinema and Art" (Kino i iskusstvo) — the tour plus the immersive exhibition "Author's Style", 120 minutes, weekends and school holidays. Also 1,150 and 950 roubles.
- "Behind the Frame" (Za kadrom) — the tour plus a make-up workshop, 120 minutes, Saturdays and Sundays at 14:00. One price, 1,450 roubles, groups of 7 to 10. You sign a safety briefing log before the workshop.
- "Magic of the Frame" (Magiya kadra) — the studio plus the Channel Five TV studio, Saturdays at 14:00, 3,550 roubles. Passport details are needed for the TV studio pass, and sales close two days ahead.
For families there is a one-hour fairy-tale tour, "Skazka za skazkoy", at weekends at 11:00 and 12:00, at the same price as the overview. Everything else runs two hours or more. Arrive 5–10 minutes before the start.
🚗 Exhibitions and picture cars
The studio is especially proud of its picture vehicles: vintage cars rented out for filming. It has displayed them against a set of an old city street, complete with cobblestones and film lights. Which cars are on show at any given moment depends on what the film crews currently need.
Vintage cars in front of a street set — Photo: GAlexandrova, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
There are also four-hour coach-and-walking programmes that include the studio — "Kinograd" and "Sherlock Holmes in Leningrad: Londongrad" (7 and 22 November at 12:00); an adult ticket costs 2,350 roubles. Both are in Russian.
