I've been to Kolomna a few times to see the beautiful Kremlin and churches (click here to see some good pictures).
One of my new clients is a newspaper in Kolomna, and I learned from one of its articles that apparently the city was once home to a large phonograph (or gramophone) manufacturer. A group of volunteers is putting together a gramophone museum. When I go back for another visit that will definitely be on my list of places to see.
The Russian word for gramophone is patefon. It seemed like an obvious borrowing from French, but a Google search for the word only turned up Russian hits. Hmm... Then I stumbled across a Wikipedia article about the brothers Charles and Émile Pathé. They originally leased an Edison phonograph for a cafe they owned, but after a while they decided to make their own devices and sell them under the Pathé brand. The pathephone! Interestingly, the photo in the Wikipedia article shows a record labled "Pathé Frères Phonograph Co." So the Pathés used the word phonograph.
In Radio Drama, Tim Crook describes Soviet director Dziga Vertov complaining that post-production is a pain with pathephones. I just bet it was.
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