In 1897, the first permanent cinema opened in Novorossiysk, just two years after the first film screenings in Paris and seven years before films were shown regularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Its founder was the enterprising Riga merchant Alvin Ivanovich Gutsman.

Gutsman's cinema was located on Vokzalnaya Street (now Elevatornaya) in a building constructed by the 'House Owners' Society.' It was a long two-story brick structure in the classical style of tenement houses. The first floor included spacious halls for shops and establishments, while the second was intended for residential apartments. Gutsman rented part of the first floor for his cinema.

Soon, the building's facade displayed the first posters inviting people to a unique spectacle: 'Living Pictures,' 'The Latest Word in Science and Modern Arts,' 'The Cinematograph of Alvin Gutsman.' This 'wonder of technology' attracted many viewers from both the old and new parts of the city, despite the high ticket price (from 40 kopecks to 1 ruble).

At that time, Russia had not yet produced its own films, and the cinema showcased foreign films, predominantly French films by the Lumière brothers. These short films, 15-20 meters long, were shown for about 1.5 minutes. Before the screening, viewers were warned about the complete safety of the new attraction, but the film 'The Arrival of a Train' still frightened them; people screamed and ran out of the hall when the locomotive moved towards them on the screen.

Film distributors faced challenges: film reels were expensive and sold by the meter (1 meter, 40 kopecks), so a cinema usually had no more than a dozen reels, which were shown in one session. This situation negatively affected many permanent cinemas, as viewers, having seen all the films in one session, would not return. Therefore, many entrepreneurs moved films from city to city, showing them until they were worn out. The permanent cinema on Vokzalnaya also did not last long.

Having exhausted the possibilities of film distribution in Novorossiysk, Alvin Ivanovich Gutsman soon switched to mobile screenings. In 1898, he left the city, but the memory of the first cinema and its founder remained forever.

In 1995, a book by Novorossiysk writer and journalist Konstantin Podyma titled 'Happy Sailing, 'The Schooner of Peers'!' was published, where he wrote about the first cinema in the city. Cadets and crew members of the 'Schooner' began searching, and it became clear that the first cinema should be sought in the Standard area. This area was actively settled in the 1890s due to the construction of a railway connecting Novorossiysk with the center of the country, as well as the development of the seaport and the construction of the largest elevator in Europe.

To this day, a house built by French concessionaires has been preserved. In 1987, it housed the V. V. Mayakovsky Library, pharmacy No. 50, and cafeteria No. 2. It was in this building that the first cinema was located.

A person was found who recounted his visit to the cinema: Semyon Ivanovich Masalov remembered how in 1905 or 1906 he went there with his father, Ivan Fedoseevich, a boiler operator at the railway workshops. At that time, cinema was called a bioscope, and a film about the animal world was shown. Semyon sat in the front rows on a rough bench, and when enormous elephants appeared on the screen, he got scared and screamed. His father calmed him down, saying that the elephants had already left the screen. Semyon looked up and saw other scenes, a train, people... Everything was very interesting. He added that the cinema on Vokzalnaya was the only one in the city.

After the revolution, in February 1920, an arts department was created in Novorossiysk under the Revolutionary Committee, headed by Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold, who later became a famous Soviet director.

Also, in the building where the cinema was located, the oldest cafeteria in the city still exists, opened in 1895.