Swan Lake at The Bolshoi

I've just got back from the Bolshoi, and want to write about it while it's fresh in my mind.

Getting my ticket was all a bit last minute (I only spotted it on the theatre's website two days ago), and I was so excited when I arrived at the venue. People were already milling around outside, taking pictures of the imposing baby pink building. As I was there alone, I had to pluck up the courage to ask people, in a very bad hybrid of Russlish and pointing, to take a picture of me. As is always the case when one does this, the results weren't great - and this is why I've included a picture of the building that doesn't have half of it cut off instead.

I approached the doors, all of which were closed and guarded by surly-looking security guards, and handed over my ticket. Luckily, contrary to my fears, the ticket was fine and Mr Sunshine let me in without any problems. Inside, everything was very grand. There were incredibly high ceilings, and gilding everywhere. I had time to explore, so I made my way through the labyrinthine passageways, feeling a bit intimidated. On my travels I came across the champagne room, where the posher people were sipping the bubbly stuff in the company of an absolutely massive chandelier and more gold. On the next floor up there was another reception room with more of the same, except with the addition of a big grand piano. I felt very out of place among all these people. Some of them were wearing full ball gowns, and most were at least a lot better dressed than me.

While seeing all this sophistication was interesting, the money I needed to join the upper classes in a casual glass of champers wasn't suddenly going to appear, so I made my way to my seat. I showed my ticket to the woman at the door, and she took me to the correct box, unlocked the door, and showed me in. Here was another taste of hitherto unknown grandiosity. There was a sofa behind the door, and then a curtained area containing six seats. Behind the seats was the biggest theatre I've ever seen. The boxes around the sides of the room seemed to stretch up endlessly - I don't know how the people in the seats at the very top had any chance of seeing anything. There were candle lights around each box, and another chandelier on the beautifully-painted ceiling. Even the curtain itself looked grand - oh, the tassels. It felt amazing to be there, especially with the atmosphere created by the sounds of the orchestra warming up. Every time I caught a snatch of Tchaikovsky's music amongst the drone, I got a little more excited.

I should add that photography anywhere in The Bolshoi is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. However, since arriving in Russia, I have never once seen that warning deter a glamorous Russian девушка from getting her photo. In this spirit, I decided to take as many pictures as I possibly could. I didn't take any while the performance was happening (save for when there was a pause for clapping) but I did at every other opportunity. Other people weren't quite as considerate, and were taking flash photos all the way through the performance. This was really distracting; the whole room lit up whenever someone did it, and I'm sure it must have put the dancers off.

This leads me on to a little description of my box companions (that sounds funny for some reason). They were the loudest people I have ever encountered, and it was made more grating by the fact that I couldn't even nose in on what they were saying. When the performance started, they blessedly shut up, but they were to find other ways of disrupting things. The seats in front of me were still empty when the curtain went up. These old crows decided they were having those vacant seats. The problem came when the seats' rightful occupiers showed up. They were accompanied by an usher, who got very very annoyed that the seating hierarchy had been temporarily disrupted. She and the loud ones started having an argument while the seats were being rearranged. Not only were there the barely whispered insults to contend with, but the portly women's girth caused a lot of chair-scraping noises. All eyes were on our box. Thankfully they settled down and the show went on.

The Performance

So, at last, to the performance.

It was incredible. The set design was beautiful, all blended colours and diaphanous curtains (as in the picture). The prince's birthday scenes were beautiful in a different way - more of the kind of extravagant design of The Bolshoi itself. The costumes were similarly lovely. I loved the swan's outfits, of course, but also loved the floaty, greenish dresses of the dancers in the opening scene, at Prince Siegfried's birthday party. Some of the men's costumes were impressive too, not only because of the bulgy groin areas. 'The Evil Genius', as he's described in the programme - his costume had a great design. It was black and imposing and weirdly fluid, despite the dramatic, harsh make-up. 

The music was of course, stunning. It's always so soaring, and dramatic, but this was emphasised by the amazing orchestra tucked just under the stage. Right when the horns come in for the repeat of the famous refrain, right when Odette is dying, was absolutely perfect.

And the dancing. It was so much better than my other ballet experiences. When I've seen it before, it's very obvious that someone is exerting themselves to do amazing thing with their body. Here it just seemed effortless. The parts where the Prince and Odile, the swan princess's double, spin all the way around the stage was astounding, and was met with numerous 'Bravo!'s from the audience.

The beautiful dancing on show was definitely appreciated by the Russians. As mentioned, they showed it in their spirited, and repeated, cries of 'Bravo!', and also in a stranger way. It seems that Russians have a special way of clapping. Rather than everyone clapping to their own tune, the crowd at The Bolshoi kept falling into a weird rhythmical affair, where everyone was collectively keeping one slow beat. It seemed a bit weird to a British person like me - back home it would be taken as a sarcastic, 'we're too bored to clap properly' kind of thing. Here it definitely meant praise, as it prompted the performers to come back for repeated curtain calls.

After a performance where I, pathetically, cried on numerous occasions because of the beauty of it all, I stayed till the last minute so that I could savour the experience to the full. It was really touching how much the audience appreciated this most classic of ballets. Some admirers stayed near the stage, clapping dutifully, a full fifteen minutes after the end of the performance, and were rewarded by seeing the Prince, Odette, and the Evil Genius appear again and again to take their bows.

The best way to sum up the experience is to describe what I saw in those last moments before I left the theatre. I looked across to a box to my left, and there was a girl of about ten, smiling and clapping more enthusiastically than anybody else. She was so enthralled by it all that she didn't notice anything around her. She didn't notice that most other people had left, didn't notice that her father was affectionately laughing about her to her mother by her side. She just kept staring at the stage and clapping out all her all her happiness at the amazing music and dancing she had just seen. 

Filthy Moscow

I have noticed some filthy things about Moscow so far:

A McDonalds Royale, in Cyrillic script, looks like роял.

Кунцевская, in the latin alphabet is Kuntsevskaya.

A phonetic script I had to write recently in training looked like this: /aɪ jæbsəlu:tlɪ lʌv ti:ʧɪŋ/

Moscow Metro

The Moscow Metro system is a very terrifying thing. At rush hour, it is impossible not to move. Don't think about dropping your phone, pausing to desperately look at a sign, or turning back when you realise you're heading for the train to Vladivostok; any attempt to stop yourself from being dragged along with the other commuters will result in broken limbs, a busted nose, or at best, a stern nadger-freezing Russian glare.

Another tip for the Moscow traveller: either carry lots of spare change, or learn to unabashedly at the ground whenever your spare change is wanted, because A LOT of people on the metro want your money. All Moscow money-wranglers use a standard model: get on the train at door 1, walk down the train staring determinedly at the hastily turned-away faces, leave the train by door 2 at the very next stop.
The first type of metro opportunist is the standard beggar. At the end of one busy day of training, I got on the train to Mitino, settled myself at the door, and looked down to see a man with no legs and khaki overalls, wheeling himself along the carriage on a cushion. On another occasion, an elderly babooshka with a face like a nobbled gherkin managed to push her face directly into several staid uncooperative faces, until the imaginary one stop begging rule forced her to leave the train at the next station. Some beggars use props. One woman used a heavily gilded orthodox painting; another used a grubby child with a sandwich board around his neck, pushed in front of her as she moved down the carriage.

The next kind of metro money-maker is the one-man business. More bizarre than the sometimes uncomfortably impoverished beggars, these men behave like their dearest wish is to hear the approving croak of Hilary Devey reverberate towards them across the Dragon's Den. Recently, a man got on to the metro, and settled himself on a seat like the other metro travellers, completely unnoticed by anybody else. As soon as the train was in motion again, however, he leapt up from his seat, grabbed his props from his bag, and jumped into an enthusiastic, and very loud, sales pitch. The amazing product at his masterful command was a pritt stick which removed all manner of common stains. Look, he's rubbed oil on his chammy! One rub of his wand and it's disappeared! A dowdy middle aged observer clearly needed his magical stick - she grabbed at it and plunged it into her cavernous container, throwing him a couple of hundred roubles during the melee. .

When you're not on the train, there's no need to curb your spending. All manner of wonders can be had at every underground station. A walk through the dingy corridors outside the main platforms can usually reveal a stall for orthodox idols, next to an undies stall, next to a sausage kiosk. If knick-knacks, literally or otherwise, are not your thing, there's always a friendly Russian babooshka with a cage of kittens or hamsters to whet your capitalist appetite. I have been tempted by this on many occasions, though I fear that, given my limited Russian, a curious enquiry could easily see me accidentally burdened with the entire stock. In fact, this is the theory of a fellow intern and mine. We think that the current cat lady, years ago, approached the last cat lady, with the intention of giving the kittens a little stroke. The cat lady saw her opportunity and scarpered, leaving a new generation to carry on the noble metro pet-selling tradition. And so it goes.

Despite all the odd features of the Moscow metro, it can't be denied that, for the most part, the platforms are absolutely stunning. Apparently, Stalin instructed his architects to create underground palaces, to show his people that the Communist system had been justified. This really shows. Most of the stations have chandeliers, marble columns, and paintings or mosaics. One of my personal favourites is Mayakovskaya station, which won the Grand Prix at the World Trade Fair in 1938. It has beautiful steel columns and mosaics in the ceiling, depicting various visions of the sky. Set the beautiful design of the stations alongside the bizarre nature of the activities within them, and you have a very Russian mix indeed.

A great start to Pomo-Russian relations

The flight to Russia was incredibly stressful. The plane arrived in Istanbul half an hour late: I only had an hour to make the transfer in the first place! I sprinted off the plane and got on to the bus waiting to take us to the gate quick as a flash. However, some fat people on the flight decided to tuck into my rapidly-diminishing minutes by slowly flobbing down the steps.

When I finally got to the transfer queue, there were about a hundred people ahead of me. This called for a little disarming charm - I strode confidently up to the man at the first check point, pointed at my boarding pass, and stunned him with the line, 'Errr, my flight! Very soon!'. This display of eloquence got me put right to the front of the line. Despite this, I still had to lumber up to the boarding gate in the quickest run I could manage. I made it on to the flight just before they were going to close the gate.

As I walked down the plane, a perfect example of a big red sweaty Englishwoman, I was met with hostile  faces. I don't think I endeared myself to the Russian sensibility by panting and nervously smiling my way down the aisle.

As for the journey, after sweating in my seat for the first half an hour, I later managed to spill water in to the lap of the small boy sat next to me. His large, intimidating mother did not look best pleased.

Pre-Russia nice things

Here are some things which made up for saying goodbye:

• Having tasty burgers at the worlds greatest 'mid-range relationship restaurant'.
• Seeing Grandaddy play and watching Matthew pom along.
• Staying in the luxurious purple rooms of Premier Inn Manchester.

Pom!

I am a Pom. Matthew is a Pom. This is for him, because Poms stick together.