Like other pieces of Mexican ornamental art, Sergei Eisenstein brought this rug from Mexico in 1932. The composition is arranged around a Mexican heroic leader, who is identified with the feathered serpent Quetzalcōātl, a deity revered by Latin American Indians since ancient times.

A small rug from Mexico with a similar stylized figure and geometric ornament probably lay in the library of the director’s apartment or decorated his summer house in the village of KrAtovo.

This rug from Mexico also portrays a mythological leader and god Quetzalcōātl in the center. It is surrounded by Mexican warriors in masks, and at the corners one can see the national symbol of Mexico, a caracara bird with a snake in its beak. Eisenstein bought this rug in Mexico during the shooting of the film Que viva Mexico! This rug covered the sofa in his bedroom in the apartment on Potylikha Street.

Sergei Eisenstein’s bedroom looked like depicted in this watercolor drawing by Georgy Grivtsov right after the director’s death in February 1948. The bedroom is filled with various picturesque decor elements with sacral motifs of the peoples of the world. Colorful rugs, photos in orange mats, ancient Japanese engravings, masks from different countries and statuettes blended the walls of pale pink. Sergei Eisenstein asked to paint the room exactly in this color, which reminded him of his childhood.

The striped palace rug embellishes the Bedroom zone exposition. It is probably made of traditional woolen serape capes, also brought by the director from Mexico. Anna Koleychuk, the designer of the Sergei Eisenstein’s Study exposition, used the geometric ornament from the rug – white, orange, dark brown and thin blue stripes – to color the benches for visitors.

From the trip, Sergei Eisenstein also brought traditional dried pumpkin vase made by women in southern Mexico, on the Isthmus of TehuantepEc between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. Similar vases were filmed in an episode Sandunga of the film Que viva Mexico! in 1931.

Full name: A small mexican rug
Date: late 1920s–1931
Technique: dyed wool, weaving
Place: Mexico
Dimensions: 180.5×155 cm
Collection: Bedroom
Copyright: Cinema museum
Goskatalog Number: 16573171

Sergei Eisenstein designed the two bedside tables he commissioned from the carpenters of the woodshop at MosfIlm himself for his apartment on PotYlikha Street. The director has purposefully mixed a lot of styles in his apartment. The armchair and chair in the library were crafted in Chippendale style of the second half of the 18th century; the mahogany bureau secretaire in the bedroom reflected the Empire style of the early 19th century; all these items existed side by side with BAuhaus-style furniture on metal legs and Eisenstein’s own project: simple, functional and elegant shelving and stepladder in the library, and bedside tables in the bedroom.

On the right bedside table the filmmaker kept an alarm clock, medicine bottles, and a reading lamp which he placed on top of three thick books for convenience. Original medicine bottles were not preserved. Similar vintage vials were presented to the Museum of Cinema for this exhibition by Peter von Dervies, a master from the State Research Institute of Restoration.

Paper sheets and a pencil were always right by the bedside — if a thought came in the middle of the night, it could be promptly written down. Director’s creative thoughts never ceased; they didn’t even pause during the night rest. Eisenstein jokingly wrote that he was very lazy: when he should have been drawing, he would instead read, when he should have been reading, he would write, and when should’ve been writing, he would draw.

On the left bedside table, there was a telephone and a Bauhaus lamp, and in the back, an Aztec ceremonial stone hatchet that the director brought from Mexico was leaning against the wall. Eisenstein jokingly compared this ancient stone profile to the head of his friend and colleague Viktor Shklovsky.

Above the nightstands, to the either side of the Mexican carpet on his wall, Sergei Eisenstein hung photographs of the action moments of his unfinished film ‘Que viva Mexico! ’: from an episode of the Easter scene in the Fiesta novel and from the Maguei novel. Above it all he placed sheets of Japanese graphics: the works of Utamaro and his contemporary Tōshūsai Sharaku. Mexico and Japan were two of the filmmaker’s favorite countries. To the left of the bed was a large mahogany Empire bureau with a folding table top. A striped robe brought from a foreign business trip hung behind it.

Full name: Bedside table with household items
Date: 1935
Technique: plywood, wood, handmade elements 
Place: Moscow
Dimensions: 50.5×52×52 cm
Collection: Bedroom
Copyright: Cinema museum
Goskatalog Number: 16573078