From 1979 to 1986, director Igor Maslennikov made a series of adaptations of Sherlock Holmes for Soviet television under the general title The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Each film consisted of two or three episodes - as a result, they were transferred to the screen: "The Colorful Ribbon", "A Study in Scarlet", "The End of Charles Augustus Milverton", "The Last Case of Holmes", "The Empty House", "The Sign of the Four" , "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Engineer's Finger", "Second Spot", "Drawings of Bruce-Partington", "His Farewell Bow". And in the third year of production of the series - a two-part film adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. While the feature films have taken some liberties with their source text, they have generally remained surprisingly faithful to Conan Doyle, with some of the stories that have been adapted rarely, if ever, seen on screen before this series. The series, starring Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Watson, gained immense popularity in the former Soviet Union, and Livanov was awarded an honorary MBE (Order of the British Empire) for his role as the Great Detective.
