Russians will have an opportunity to rekindle their romance with Indian cinema during a week-long festival of latest Bollywood films which began in Moscow with the screening of Aishwarya Rai-starrer Chokher Bali.

The new generation of Russian Bollywood fans would also be able to enjoy Pradip Sarkar's Parineeta, Shriram Raghvan's Ek Hasina Thi, Mahesh Manjrekar's Rakht and Anurag Basu's Murder in the Indian Evenings film fest which started at the prestigious hall of the House of Entrepreneurs on Tuesday evening.

The festival has been organised by the Indian Embassy in collaboration with local sponsors amidst a growing interest among yound Russian about Bollywood.

Indian Evenings film fest began in Moscow with the screening of Chokher Bali.

Indian movies had been very popular in the erstwhile Soviet Union and every generation in the bygone days had its idols beginning from Raj Kapur, Amitaabh Bachchan to Mithun Chakraborty.

After over a decade long lull the Russian TV channels, including the main government network 'Rossia' have started weekly telecast of the golden collection of old Bollywood movies dubbed in Russian during the Soviet times.

After the collapse of Soviet films distribution system and eventually its takeover by Hollywood, it became extremely difficult to enter for the Bollywood movies to enter into the Russian market.