Maybe not the best place to ask but I recently visited the Ghibli Museum (which was awesome highly recommend). In one of the rooms set up as a workspace exhibition there where drawings and notes displayed on the wall. Some of these contained handwritten Russian notes. As well as a hand drawn map of medieval Moscow. There where some other things like a drawing of ship which looked inspired by Battleship Potemkin. I assume these where used as references for some of their movies. Does anyone know if Miyazaki or any of the other animators could read and write Russian? I couldn't find any information online apart from Miyazaki being inspired by The Snow Queen (Snezhnaya Koroleva) (1957).
I'm not sure if he could read Russian, but in addition to the Snow Queen by Lev Atamanov, Miyazaki frequently cites Soviet animator Yuri Norstein as a major influence, and lists two of his films (Hedgehog in the Fog, and Tale of Tales) as among his favourites of all time.[1] Several of his movies do have shots that seem strongly reminiscent of the Battleship Potemkin so I'd be surprised if that film wasn't an influence as well, although I don't know of a source that states it.
