LIHULA CULTURE HOUSE
Lihula, Estonia

The lamphouse is vertical and and can run 2kW or 3kW bulbs. No-one has ever seen a 2kW bulb in these projectors before. When the motor is off, the current drops to 20 amperes and jumps back to 100 when the motor is started. Soviet 3kW bulbs have/had warranty for 1000 hours but they usually blew before. A colleague said that in Soviet time, when the stores were all empty, the old xenon bulb electrodes were used for welding. One more interesting thing: Soviet bulbs and reflectors were segregated into four classes depending on their color temperature, so you can adjust the color temperature on the screen. If the bulb was too blueish you had to use a "yellow" mirror. But very often the projectionists had no choice to select bulbs and reflectors, they had to use what was given to them. So it was usual that one projector had white picture while the other one was blue.

April 2009 photo from the Olev Mihkelmaa collection.