Description:

The first cartoon adaptation of Chukovskiy's well-known children's poem about a fly who finds a coin and goes to buy a samovar.

Chukovskiy's 1924 poem can be read in Russian here, and in English here (Dorian Rosenberg) and here (Tom Botting).

Finished in 1941 the week before Germany attacked the USSR, the cartoon was lauded by animators at Soyuzmultfilm but received no wide distribution, and the original soundtrack was lost. It was remade in 1960, but the original was not seen in public again until 2018. The Russian state film archive had made a positive copy in the 1990s, and digitized it in 2014. The soundtrack was reconstructed using mostly the 1960 version. At 2:33, the fly's voice suddenly moves down an octave because in 1960 that line was spoken by a different character. Also, the drum solo at the end (when the spider appears) was reportedly much more impressive originally.

Boris Dyozhkin seems to have been responsible for supervising the animation. His role was ultimately subordinate to Vladimir Suteyev, but he is listed as director in the 1960 film's credits, so he is listed here as director for this film as well (for consistency's sake).

The above restoration was released by Soyuzmultfilm in May 2025. It is in the TV frame rate of 25fps, so is a bit faster and higher-pitched than it would have been originally.