He served aboard the Gangut battleship and took part in the Gulf of Finland mining for which he was awarded the 3rd class Order of Saint Stanislaus.
According to the memoirs of one of the rebels, Dmitry Ivanov, Podobed was relieved of duty for expressing support to the sailors, but was later restored and returned to war.
Following the October Revolution he took part in the Russian Civil War and served in the Soviet Navy headquarters under Aleksandr Nemits.
[5][6] In 1918 Podobed took a managing position at the Moscow Art Theatre headed by his relative Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.
In 1929 Vsevolod Meyerhold decided to make his directorial debut with Eugeny Bazarov, a film adaptation of the Fathers and Sons novel by Ivan Turgenev.
From 1942 on he worked at Mosnauchfilm (known as Voentechfilm during the World War II) dedicated to popular science and educational films.