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What is the Rezidentura?
In it’s basic form, a Rezidentura is the KGB office within the Soviet Embassy. That makes it a rather obvious location to be seen in FX’s hit show The Americans.
In season one of The Americans, all the Rezidentura scenes were shot on location (I would love to know if “on location” meant at the actual Russian Embassy…) However, in Season 2 of The Americans, the Rezidentura was recreated on a sound stage.
This is an obvious choice for the production because it allows them to light, and dress scenes… and leave them that way. (not to mention the time and money saved not having to drive all the people and gear to the location).
Production Designer John Mott (whom you may know from his work on the film Coffee Town, or the TV Series Jericho) designed the labyrinth sets of the Rezidentura to allow the production to work easier then they could have in a confined location. His set design also gave the production the ability to do long “walk and Talk” shots through the winding corridors of the set .
Make sure to check out all the cool sets, and Locations on Fx’s Hit Show The Americans
This series tells us a lot about what we never knew in the 80s.