Volga-Volga () is a Soviet musical comedy directed by Grigori Aleksandrov, released on April 24, 1938. It centres on a group of amateur performers on their way to Moscow to perform in a talent contest called the Moscow Musical Olympiad. Most of the action takes place on a steamboat travelling on the Volga River. The lead roles were played by Alexandrov's wife, Lyubov Orlova, and Igor Ilyinsky. According to Orlova, the name of the film is taken from a popular Russian folk song, Stenka Razin, that Alexandrov sang while rowing with Charlie Chaplin in San Francisco Bay. Chaplin jokingly suggested the words as a title for a movie, but Alexandrov took it seriously and named his new film Volga-Volga. The feature was said to be Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin's favourite film. Nikita Khrushchev in his memoirs says that in the pre-World War II period Stalin laughed at him since he resembled a character from the film. The film is a glorification of Moscow Canal but there is not any hint in the film that this canal was built by Gulag prisoners. In 1961, a new version of a movie was released, with the "Joseph Stalin" ship cut. In 2006, a colorization of the original black-and-white film began. The colorized version premiered on the Russian First Channel on February 14, 2010. Background Before Volga-Volga, Grigory Aleksandrov wrote a script about a female taper (a ballroom cinema pianist), Katya Muratova, who could not find a better job after finishing her conservatory studies. It was based on his wife Lyubov Orlova's biography. When the film is torn, as was a regular occurrence in the silent film era, it takes time to repair the film, and the pianist has to fill the gap in order to calm down the audience, who is shouting "Bunglers!" and whistling in rage. So, the female pianist plays classical music and it usually works. But one time, the projectionist, delighted with her performance, deliberately delays the repair, and Katya Muratova performs the entire classical piece. The "purist" part of the public demanded that the theatre perform "the classics" instead of vulgar films; the other, of course, is against it. A fight ensues, and in the end, the cinema is smashed to pieces, and the taper is fired as a result. Unfortunately, the original film script was never given a green light, but the conflict between supporters of classical and