Russian Jews. Part One. Before Revolution.

The documentary tells the history of Jews in Russia. This is the first film of a series in three parts. It covers the period up to the revolution of 1917. Its starting point is very old. Chronicles of the eleventh century speak of a Jewish quarter in Kyiv. In the centuries that followed the population gathered in the west of the empire. There was an arrangement known as the pale of settlement. Jews could live only in certain districts. Their rights to trades and to education were limited too. Even so, leading figures came out of that world in commerce, science and the arts. Some emigrated to escape the arrangement. Some entered the revolutionary movements. The presenter tells the story by travelling and showing. Leonid Parfyonov presents the eighty six minute documentary, a Russian production Dmitry Kurchatov and Sergey Nurmamed finished in 2016.