19th century printing processes still carried out in St Petersburg

(22 Apr 2009) SHOTLIST
Shot March 28,29 in St.Petersburg, Russia
1. Wide of St.Petersburg along the water
2. Wide of street
3. Mid of typographer picking up lead characters from boxes
4. Mid of typographer putting characters on bar
5. Close up of typographer putting characters on bar
6. Wide of typographer setting up characters
7. Close up of character lines being set onto a list
8. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Sergey Yashin, typographer at Rare Books Publishing House:
"I can not say it is more harmful then smoking. You can quit smoking, you can quit lead typesetting. Actually, the whole world is quitting smoking and has already quit hand-set lead typesetting. Everybody is doing it in offset nowadays. We are the only place where all this is being kept, and still works."
9. Mid of typographer working with page made of lead characters
10. Close up of typographer placing paint on characters
11. Close up of typographer putting red paint on initial cap
12. Mid of typographer putting piece of paper on characters and loading the page into printing press
13. Close up typographer turning printing press
14. Close up of typographer getting the page out of printing press
15. Mid of typographer taking the paper page off the list of lead characters
16. Close up printed page
17. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Sergey Yashin, typographer at Rare Books Publishing House:
"I can say, I am working without any hurry, because I have nowhere to run, plus the haste will cost us more, after all. That is why it takes a day for typesetting one page of, say, ecclesiastes."
18. Zoom out of glue being added to book pages and being put together
19. Close up of book page
20. Wide of bibliographer putting the book page into press machine
21. Close up of bibliographer tightening the screws on the press machine
22. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Pyotr Suspitsyn, head of Rare Books Publishing House:
"Usually, I pick up books that I like, at my own discretion, which we later publish here. But the books are usually the ones that were selected by history itself, they are imperishable pieces of literature, imperishable texts."
23. Wide of bibliographer showing the ready-made book of the Ten Commandments
24. Close up of book
25. Close up of inscription on the book
26. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Pyotr Suspitsyn, head of Rare Books Publishing House:
"Our publishing house is more or less unprofitable. Some of our projects are self-liquidating, but we don't get and we do not expect some excess profit. There can't be any excess profit from what we spend on our projects. Otherwise we would have to sell our books at a much bigger price."
27. Wide of lithographic workshop
28. Mid of worker putting paint onto lithograph
29. Close up of worker putting paint onto lithograph
30. Wide of worker drying the lithograph, artist Yuri Kuper standing by
31. Close up worker drying the lithograph
32. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Yuri Kuper, artist, collector:
"We are using a rather complex lithography technology, when you have to run the lithograph through the machine not once, but six or seven times. We will use silver and gold to make it look more Biblical and celestial."
33. Mid of worker putting paint onto lithograph
34. Close up of worker putting paint onto lithograph
35. Mid shot workers place the lithograph into press machine and taking it out
36. Mid of worker taking the lithograph
37. Close up lithograph
LEADIN
St Petersburg in Russia - a city steeped in history, art and literature.
And buried in its streets is a unique treasure - the country's only place where books are still printed using 19th Century techniques.
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[@thriftyworkinggirl7481]

I can't understand what is being said because I speak English, but I still understand the concept. Thank you for sharing. I picked up a book printed in 1877 and couldn't help but wonder how they were printed, even more curious about how the illustrations were printed and transferred over.

[@katekiler]

It's not a literal translation and some minor dialogues were omitted, but mentioned as such.*
* by *typing* i mean choosing lead letters for print, but he often uses this word (i think) to describe the printing process as a whole. (as in 0:45 : можно бросить курить, можно бросить заниматься *набором* )
0:10 So we're typing now. 0:16 We're typing.
0:41 I can say there's no more harm in it than in smoking. 0:45 It is possible to stop smoking so it is possible to stop typing as well. Almost everyone now has stopped smoking and printing with lead letters, now everything is done on the internet. 1:00 I'm sure our place is the only one left where we still store and run such process.
1:20 I'm being careful not to mess it up on near letters.
1:28 Let's go.
1:36 [Woman briefly describes the action as he presses the paper sheet]*
2:03 I don't type hastily, mainly because i'm not anyhow limited in time. Rush usually drawbacks costing even more. 2:15 So with that in mind i can type this page (of Ecclesiastes) usually within a day or so.
2:35 We're gluing two pages together. 2:45 So later we can put it under the press.
2:54 Our publisher's choice of books largely depends on my interests, however the topics chosen are all time-tested, that are not that perishable.
3:21 So here we have our finished Bible - it looks like this. 3:33 [just people talking to each other in the background]*
3:40 Our publisher is more or less unprofitable. Some of our projects break even, pay themselves off.
3:49 But we don't expect any profit, especially a large one; there simply can't be any considering our expenses, 4:00 otherwise we would have to raise our prices significantly.
4:17 I'm washing the ink off, thus simply changing one ink with another.
4:31 We're dealing here with pretty difficult lithography technique that isn't done with just one run, you need to run it 6 or 7 times. 4:43 it involves gold and silver for it to look divine.
4:57 [Tells about fairy tale, the recording is abrupt]*
5:08 
- You do it with energy! (энергично, energetic)
- Too much, huh?
- No, it's alright.

[@katekiler]

4:14 О, литография