Opening in 1913 as the Piccadilly Picture House, this was the city’s most fashionable cinema in the early years of Russian film, and it has retained its position pretty consistently ever since. Today most premieres (to which you can nearly always buy tickets) take place here. Foreign films are dubbed into Russian, though sometimes you’ll find the odd subtitled one.
Renamed the more Soviet-sounding Avrora in 1932, it was here that a young Dmitry Shostakovich played piano accompaniment to silent movies.