Window to Paris (1993): Cast & Plot

In 1992 Russia, Nikolay Chizhov, a music teacher, moves into a crowded communal apartment in St. Petersburg and discovers a mysteriously boarded-up window in his new room. At a lively housewarming, he and his guests drunkenly tumble from that window, assuming it leads to the city’s streets. Instead, they land in a smoky Paris bar. The next day, an elderly resident explains that the window periodically opens to Paris, but only every few decades and for a brief spell. With this impossible prospect in mind, Chizhov’s neighbor, Gorokhov, and his family begin a string of cross-border ventures through the window—selling souvenirs, smuggling small goods, and even ferrying a Citroën 2CV into Russia—turning the apartment into a tiny gateway between two worlds.