The Best Sherlock Holmes was...Russian?

Between 1979 and 1986, Russia's Lenfilm Studios produced a series of television films based on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Igor Maslennikov, it was the most popular series in the history of Soviet television, and starred Vasily Livanov as the legendary London consulting detective and Vitaly Solomin as his redoubtable associate, Dr. John H. Watson, M.D., late of Her Majesty's Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers--a role for which Solomin has been universally praised as one of the most authentic and amusing of all Dr. Watsons. The films have since become cult favorites.

Many consider Livanov's Holmes to be one of the finest interpretations of Conan Doyle's eccentric hero. Aficionados have noted that of all the actors to have played the part, it is Livanov who most closely resembles the famous Sydney Paget drawings that accompanied Conan Doyle's original stories in Strand magazine between 1891-1892. Livanov's performance as Holmes was so highly regarded in England that on February 20, 2006, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Livanov an honorary Commandership in the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for service to the theatre and performing arts," a rare honor for a non-British citizen.

On April 23, 2002, Vitaly Solomin (Watson) suffered a massive stroke at Moscow's Malyi Theatre during a performance of a play he was directing called "The Wedding of Krechinsky." He died a month later.