Mariinsky magic and an Idiotic interlude

Day two in St Petersburg began well. Gail woke up with one pink eye. The only legacy of a vodka-fueled night out and, truth be told, more likely to be a result of industrial use of shampoo.

We had our first breakfast in the hotel, which, unlike the Savoy, was well attended; in other words, packed to the gills with tourists, predominantly from Germany. There was a minor international incident over the toaster - not terribly efficient and probably a relic from the Siege of Leningrad - which meant that mutterings and glower-ings were exchanged across the dining room for a good part of the meal. (I have now moved on from salmon and black bread to smoked ham and cheese and rye. Could do with a few prunes though...)

We were due to meet our contact, Dimitri, at the stage door of the Mariinsky Theatre at 10 40, a little before company class. We were also lined up to meet an English Dancer, Alexander Parish, who had joined the ballet company in January, of whom more later. On the button of 10 40 a small man with a beaming smile appeared - could this be the fabled Russian leprechaun, we wondered? - and introduced himself as Dimitri. His full title is International Projects Co-ordinator and Ballet Interpreter, but as we were to find out later, his talents far exceed his job description. He speaks several languages, including Greek and Arabic and he regularly performs as an actor with one of the great theatre companies in St. Petersburg. After much form-filling (thank-goodness it was down to Dimitri to do the paperwork; the visa entry form was enough for us)  we were ushered into the labyrinthine world of backstage Mariinsky.

Part of the discipline of being a professional ballet dancer is attending class every day - usually in the morning. It is the preparation for everything that is to follow - rehearsals and performances. Since the company is huge (240 dancers altogether, although at least half are on tour at any given time) there is more than one company class each day, with some devoted to the girls and the others to the guys. We were to watch girls' class, given by Natalia Spizena.

In class, you're seeing dancers stripped of any vestige of artifice. It's the equivalent of watching people brushing their teeth and clipping their toe-nails: it's not something you want everyone to see. I'm going to leave the pictures to speak for themselves. Suffice to say, the Mariinsky has some fabulous dancers.

Stretching:

                                                            Barre:

Perfection:

Rehearsal: Lilac Fairy Attendants:









After class, Alexander Parish - Xander - came to collect us and take us on a tour of the theatre. Gail and Sue were already familiar with his story but for me it was something of a revelation.

Born in Hull, Alexander developed an interest in dancing at the age of eight.  When he was twelve, he entered White Lodge, the junior section of the Royal ballet School, and joined the company itself in 2005. Xander is not only gifted as a dancer with great good looks and a remarkable physique but at 6' 1 he is one of the tallest male dancers in the ballet world. Despite all this he languished in the corps at the Royal, and might still be there spear-carrying were it not for Yuri Fateev, now Acting Director of the Mariinsky. Yuri was spending a short time coaching the Royal Ballet in 2007 when he spotted Xander and asked him if he would be interested in joining the Mariinsky. Xander didn't take him seriously at first but three years later, here he is. The only English dancer in the company, ever.

                                                                                        Xander:

And it is clear he is thriving. The powers-that-be love him. Within six weeks of landing at St Petersburg airport he was dancing the male lead in Sylphides, the preceding Saturday he had performed the Pas de Trois from Swan Lake in front of Putin - a keen balletomane - and within hours of our meeting he was called to study the roles of Albrecht (Giselle) and Siegfried (Swan Lake).

Since the three of us are all mothers of boys, we quacked around Xander like old ducks, and made immediate plans for further get-togethers while we're here in St. Petersburg.

The Mariinsky Theatre is in a state of serious disrepair. Goodness knows how no one has broken a leg or done any major damage to themselves. Stone steps lead up and down the many and uneven levels of the theatre and there are metal trunks and scenery stacked in the corridors. Compared to Covent Garden it is a hovel. A beautiful hovel but a hovel nonetheless.

Penny snapped by Xander in front of the Mariinsky







We especially loved seeing the stage and taking in the auditorium from the stage. There's something very romantic about watching the drops and the scenery being put in place in the half-light of a dusty theatre.

                  Setting up for Sleeping Beauty:

  Ready and waiting.

                                                             More waiting...    





                                                                              

       Is this a tutu I see before me?

A cabbage roll and a new headdress, please.




We left the Mariinsky around 2pm with a mission to find a place for lunch. (It was now some six hours since we'd eaten anything, and we were starving - something of an occupational hazard we were discovering.) We remembered passing a restaurant called The Idiot along one of the canal walks, which had been recommended to Gail by Julie Kavanagh (the author of a matchless biography of Nureyev). Sure enough the restaurant was quaint - yet another library setting - with an extensive menu, purely vegetarian. Sue had pancakes with caviar, Gail pancakes with lemon - now, becoming a firm favourite - and I had a crab and avocado salad.

I guess we were making rather a lot of noise because the couple at the table next to us introduced themselves in English. They were English. In fact, Jill turned out to be a Friend of the Mariinsky. Curiouser and curiouser, she and her companion, Norman, were all set to watch class at the Vaganova School the next day, as were we. Now, what are the chances of running into people you've never met in a randomly chosen spot who are set to be with you the next day.

Lunch over and four-o'clock, Gail and I admitted defeat in terms of being-a-fully-paid-up-tourist and returned to the hotel for rest and recuperation.

Sue took in the Kazan Cathedral, the Church on the Spilled Blood (closed) and the Mikhailovsky Gardens (not closed).

                                                         Church on the Spilled Blood.



However, our friend, the Energizer Bunny, had run out of battery juice by the evening and opted for room service while Gail and I had a less than magnificent meal in a restaurant near the Mariinsky, Teatro. If you go there, please don't order the chicken risotto. It turned out to be a plate of white rice with a tough old bird laid out on it.  (No comparisons, please.)

Night-night.

No vodka, please, we're British

Tuesday was a bit of a blurry day.

We'd had roughly four hours sleep on the train and hauling our bags to the taxi was about all our feeble minds and bodies could handle. We were too early to check into our rooms at the hotel so we left the luggage with the bellboy and asked one of the receptionists where we could have breakfast. "No, I know no cafes near here..." Then after conversing with a colleague, "Try the Literarti Cafe: turn right outside the hotel, right again and it's on the opposite side of the road."

So that's where we headed at a slow crawl, except we found ourselves in a back street near a canal with nerry a shop or restaurant in sight.

Fortunately, our hotel, the Petro Palace, is brilliantly situated at the heart of St. Petersburg and slap bang in the middle of all the museums, palaces and churches you would want to see. It is a hundred yards from the main drag, Nevsky Prospect, which we eventually  managed to stumble onto - and I mean stumble. Practically the first bright window we spotted was a little tea-room, where we hunkered down for a couple of hours, revived somewhat by croissants, ham-and-cheese toasts and hot chocolate. (We never ever found the aptly named Literati Cafe; I suspect the name is wrong and it's located elsewhere. If any of you know it or find it, let us know. Please.)

The Petro Palace may be well placed but it is not a patch on Moscow's Savoy.It looks great on the outside but inside it is a hotchpotch of narrow passages, barn-like open spaces, some bare-tiled and others covered with worn-down carpets. Gail and I were shown into a room that had something of the prison cell about it and immediately asked to be relocated, which to the hotel's credit it did, and we nested there for the rest of our stay in St Petersburg.

Where Sue got her energy from I have no idea. In the time it took Gail and I to unpack and shower, update the blog and make some phone calls, Sue, armed with Lonely Planet and a digital camera, had taken in the Admiralty, the Peter and Paul Fortress, Mars Field and the Marble Palace.

 It was becoming a bit of a pattern.
                                                                                   Griboyedov Canal, Bank Bridge.

We all showed up to dinner in the evening though.

One of our contacts was a TV presenter of a weekly current affairs programme, Roman Gerasimov. He had booked a table at a restaurant called, Teplo, which is hidden away in a small courtyard just off St Isaac's Square. He took over immediately, which was great because we were a little tired of making executive decisions and then not being able to carry them out because no one understood us. He insisted that we had vodka, and in the correct way: a small plate of pickles and bread (much nicer than it sounds) of which you must have a mouthful before you down your shot. Roman maintained, and he turned out to be right, that if you drink vodka  this way, you will not get a hangover. You might give your taxi driver 5000 roubles and leave your hand-bag in the cab but you won't get a hangover.

Roman was a proverbial mine of information. The conversation inevitably turned to politics. Despite being a so-called democracy not a lot has changed in Russia since Perestroika. There is still an enormous amount of corruption at the top, and a massive abuse of money and power. He mentioned that one of the news stories  that had kept them entertained for weeks was the so-called expenses scandal at Westminster. "Imagine a minister being called over the coals for purchasing a duck house on expenses! Millions go missing in Russia." Another issue he was particularly passionate about was the distribution of funds for restoration and preservation. Apparently, Moscow takes 80% of the budget, which means St Petersburg has a pittance with which to repair its damaged bridges, palaces, churches and monuments. And if you could see St Petersburg, the Venice of the North, with its elegant buildings and picturesque bridges that adorn the canals and hugging the shores of the Baltic Sea, you would despair at the crumbling architecture.

So, it is now mid-night and the end of our first day in St. Petersburg. I have a feeling we're going to love our stay here.

Night-night.

Boats, boat people and not the Orient Express

Hate living out of a suitcase, especially when it seems to have shrunk in the five days since we’ve been here. It’s not the only thing that’s shrunk. Our clothes have too. (I tell you, come to Moscow and see the sights: with museum cafes as rare as a blue moon, you’ll drop a dress size.)

We organized a late check-out for 3 pm and decided to ‘do’ GUM and a boat trip. Here is a photo of GUM.

It could run the entire length of Red Square. You pass through two time zones as you go from Dior to Cartier. All right, that’s another exaggeration but it is the longest, largest department store I’ve seen. 

 If you’re anything like us, you’ll think of GUM as it was in the Cold War days: a place where never-ending queues of women with head-scarves and large bags waited outside a bread shop with no bread. Well, fast-forward forty years. GUM is more of an up-scale mall, with scores of high-end boutiques we’re all familiar with in the west. We were stopped from taking photos in the wine and spirits department but we had already managed to get a couple of shots elsewhere. A pair of Woolford tights will set you back £39 ($52) but a small jar of average caviar will cost you only a fraction more. We should have bought some because the caviar on the train was double the price. But that’s another story...

Making up for the lost years in the fashion wilderness:

It took us an hour to get from GUM to the pier. It was half an inch on the map but four underpasses, a bridge with no steps to the walkway underneath and an entire block off-limits due to construction turned it into a safari. But it was worth the hike.

It wasn’t so much the basilicas and the palaces that made our trip so worthwhile but the people on the boat. Have a look at this beautiful face. We christened her Su-Bo...

She was with six or seven baboushkas, all very jolly and keen to take our photographs. Maybe they have a blog...

Seeking refuge from the wind and the occasional blast of eau-de-bateau (Gail insisted the boat was fuelled on cabbage soup) we took ourselves to the canteen below . I have to tell you the coffee (Americano – espresso with hot milk) was top notch and 80p, which made it taste even better.  Not long into our pit-stop we encountered our new best friend – a Kiwi from London, teaching English in St Petersburg.  Rochelle had been in Russia since April and was, frankly, very homesick for London. She was taking her guy, Simon, sight-seeing - it was his birthday and he had flown in from London for a couple of days. Rochelle had some very different views of Moscow having lived here for five months, and they were not flattering. Outside the inner circle of Moscow central she talked about the rampant poverty and crime - she herself had narrowly missed being attacked on a morning jog in her local park. She also told us that she no longer bought food from local shops such is the dirt and contamination. We were also beginning to see beyond the bright lights of Moscow...

Our boat trip was Moscow's adieu to us. Some hours later we headed to the station, all set for our romantic train-journey to St Petersburg in the Red Arrow.

It occurred to us, as we staggered like pack mules up the stone steps of one of Moscow's main-line stations, that there were no facilities for the disabled. We couldn't find a ramp or an elevator. It then dawned upon us we hadn't seen anyone in a wheelchair since we'd arrived in Moscow. We just take health and safety as a given in the west - can you think of a public building that doesn't feature ramps and facilities for the disabled? Not so in Moscow. It's the survival of the fittest and the wealthiest.

Moscow Leningradskiy Station at 11 pm on a Monday night is not a place to be on your own. There was not a friendly face in sight; it was poorly lit and ultra depressing. There were even drunks, one of whom was covered in blood and being shepherded out of the station by the police.

What a total surprise it was to find no information in English about where to process our E-tickets. There were straggly bunches of people around ticket desks - everybody elbowing each other out of the way, waving papers and being generally unpleasant. We joined one of the lines - if you can call it a line, it was more of a scrum - until Sue established that we should be in an entirely different place.

Thankfully we had allowed for plenty of time to catch the train - we had no idea we’d need so much of it simply to walk the length of the platform to our carriage. We couldn’t see the end of the train from the barrier. The Red Arrow is Russia’s most famous train. It used to carry the elite of the communist party between Moscow and Leningrad. Five minutes before the grand opening of the carriage doors, a uniformed guard stepped out onto the platform – no, please don’t cross the yellow line – and at a given signal we were allowed to board.

I have to tell you that this is not the Orient Express. It is romantic in the sense that you’re travelling across Russia in the dead of night gently drifting away to the hypnotic clackety-clack of the ‘wheels’ and the swinging gait of the train but the beds are hard and narrow and our meal came in a paper box. And we were in business class. A cheerful attendant brought around some duty-free – how do you feel about an open sandwich of salmon and salmon eggs for a mere 900 roubles (about £20) and a small jar of caviar for £100? Anyway, we did sleep, sort of, and awoke to early morning drizzle in the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Oh, nearly forgot... We pulled out of Leningradskiy station to the sound of a brass band playing the Red Arrow theme tune. It took me straight back to Dr, Zhivago. Oh where oh where are the balalaikas...    

Saturday Night Out and Sunday, Bloody Sunday

We took a bit of a chance on Google for dinner.  We found a restaurant called Mayak, which sounded right up our street – bohemian, a favourite hang-out of writers and sundry ne’r-do-wells in an off-centre location.  Our taxi took the pretty route but eventually got us there.

And the bill was 1000 roubles.

Picture a smoky interior and as your eyes adjust to the blur you see a scene out of a Claude Lelouch movie (remember, Un Homme Et Une Femme?). Well, that was the Mayak restaurant. We had another great meal – see photo for proof of pudding – and we didn’t need to take out a mortgage.

We did, however, need a mortgage for our taxi back to the hotel. Not wanting to roam unfamiliar streets in Moscow late on a Saturday night we asked the restaurant to arrange a taxi for us. We should have known something was up when our waitress followed us out to the car (a brand new Mercedes) and spoke to the driver. He seemed to know what he was doing at first but five minutes into the journey he asked us where the Savoy Hotel was. (I thought this only happened when you got a Russian cab driver in New York.) He had to phone his company to find out. On arrival, he announced the fare was 5000 roubles (£110/$170). Impervious to our requests to re-think his ideas I left Gail and Sue behind as hostages and made a beeline to reception. Waiting behind the desk was our knight in shining armour, Armat, who rolled his sleeves up and went to battle for us, muttering words to the effect of: Oh, no, not again... I won’t have this.  It took ten minutes. Armat never raised his voice – obviously we had no idea what he said to the rapidly shrinking driver – but eventually he accepted our roubles. You guessed it – 1000 of them.

And that was the end of our Kremlin day.

It was not the end of the night though. At least for me. I spent most of it in the bathroom. I won’t go into details, I know you’ll get my drift, but it meant I lost most of Sunday too.  In my absence, Gail and Sue visited an outdoor market – lots of antiques, crafts and fruit and vegetables – and both came back with little sets of Matryoshka or babushka dolls.  In the evening, at Armat’s recommendation, they dined at the Library restaurant, a couple of blocks from the hotel, which was a huge success. Sue had her first Russian borsht - light and tomato-y with strips of beef in it - and a delicious lemon vodka. 

I had sparkling water and two Nurofen.

Day Three - Serious tourists

We had been told that 'doing' the Kremlin takes a day at least. Not only is there so much to see - Lenin's tomb, The Armoury, hundreds of cathedrals (that's an exaggeration, of course, but they do seem to pop up under their glided onion domes at regular intervals) the State Palace, the Secret Gardens, and more) - so we set off to Red Square just a little before 10 am.

According to Sue - where would we be without her and her well-thumbed Lonely Planet - obtaining tickets can take an inordinately long time, often due to tour guides jumping the queue and purchasing tickets for their followers, so we needed to arrive early to guarantee our top picks. She was right and she was wrong. There was not a large queue, just an impossibly obstructive ticket clerk, who had a smattering of English - and I mean hello and no (we would have understood those in Russian) -  and it took a quarter of an hour to establish that we couldn't buy tickets for the Armoury until 11.15, and there were only two tickets left for the Bell Tower, although we could visit some cathedrals. We did run into the tour-guide problem trying to get into the Diamond Room at the Armoury though, and it was infuriating. It took us half-an-hour to gain entry, despite starting off at the head of the queue. So, if you are planning to visit the Kremlin, allow more than a day, bring a hip flask and a stiff upper lip.

You'll also need a good pair of shoes. There are no eateries of any description in the museums, and virtually no seats upon which to rest your weary legs - at least, we could find none.

If you have time to do only one cathedral make sure it is The Annunciation. There isn't a spare wall, a pillar or a part of the ceiling that isn't covered with stunning frescoes or paintings. Like everything in Russia, or so it seems, the scale of it is vast. You can get up close and personal to the frescoes  - at least those that aren't forty feet up. I can't imagine why there aren't please-don't-touch signs everywhere but there you go: you can't get a ticket until the right time or have a seat until the right time but you can touch a five-hundred-year-old fresco.

The Cathedral of Annunciation:

 We must have spent a good half hour in the cathedral then the sound of a brass band drew us outside. It was Saturday (noon) and the Presidential Regiment in all its glory was parading on the square - a bit like the Changing of The Guard but obviously more spectacular because we were in a foreign country... The displays on horseback were particularly impressive. (There's something incredibly sexy about a man in uniform astride a well-manicured horse.)

Men on horseback:

To tell the truth, the Armoury was a bit of a let down. There were some wonderful displays of ceramics and glassware dating back to the Renaissance but the Faberge Eggs we had so looked forward to seeing turned out to be a mere handful in a single case with about a hundred people (twenty-five of them tour guides) crushed like squashed flies against the glass. There was a lot of harumphing and sharp-elbowing going on. The Diamond Room was also less than we had hoped for but then there was so much bureaocratic hoop-la involved in gaining entry to the exhibition that we were a little soured by the time we actually got in. Oh, and then we couldn't get out until the right time...

Obviously, we must put in a word about Red Square. I think all of us had these images engraved in our minds of granite-faced men in macs watching endless waves of tanks and goose-stepping soldiers, usually under grey and forbidding skies so it was something of a revelation to see a square flanked by the Edwardian splendour of GUM on one side and book-ended by these wonderfully coloured and golden-domed churches.
Have a look.

 

It was 3.30 when we finally sat down to a snack - oh, by the way, we couldn't find a single cafe, in the Kremlin and the museum shop was a joke: some ghastly souveniers and no books or leaflets about any of the museums in English - we had been on our feet over five hours. It was enough for Gail and I but Sue is made of sterner stuff and headed back to Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral, leaving us to limp back to the Savoy feeling as though we had somehow failed our tourist test. Could that be worse than failing your visa entry test?

I'll have to sleep on this. More tomorrow.

Day Two - Part Deux

Writing a blog is a bit labour intensive, I have to tell you, which is why I had to split Friday's jottings into two halves. Anyway, maybe the interval will have sharpened my memory and my wit. We can always hope.

After lunch on Friday at SUM (not GUM) department store - pastries, coffee and chocolate - I returned to the hotel to resume my writer-in-residence role while Gail and Sue headed out via the metro to visit The Pushkin House Museum. Apparently, this did disappoint: no information in English to tell you what the various exhibits were, and it seems much of Pushkin's furniture was never seen by Pushkin himself but was brought in to the museum at a later date - obviously not from IKEA. But still.

Pushkin's House.

Their journey home proved eventful. Exiting a metro stop that looked closer to the hotel G and S found themselves on an unfamiliar street. Like sensible people they asked directions and were repeatedly told to get to the other side of the road. Not such a problem you might think but in this case the other side of the road involved crossing a six-lane racing track. (Remember Edie Murphy's mad dash across LA's 101 in Bowfinger? Something like that.) I have mentioned the traffic situation here before - you have to see it to believe it: no lane discipline, every car doing 80 MPH, squealing and honking as they go. In Sue's words, " ... the other side of the road was the distance from Putney to Ottawa!" They eventually made it back to the Savoy, using a series of underpasses.

The journey took 40 minutes but did not cost 1000 roubles.

Gail pondering on the truism: if the shoe fits...


If you haven't been to Moscow you won't know how huge everything seems - the buildings, the spaces in between the buildings, the distance from one end of a block to another are gargantuan; Red Square could be a small principality, it may even be the size of Monaco. Gail says we are in Big Land, and given that our tallest member of the team is 5 foot 5, you can see why we feel like Lilliputians. There is a strongly European feel to much of the architecture, very reminiscent of Scandinavian cities, like Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki.-  pale greys, faded yellows and duck-egg blues being the main colours of choice. Moscow is beautiful.

As you know, we took in the Creation - sadly, not Handels's - in the evening and then found our way to a very cosmopolitan street with cafes on either side of the walkway, full of people enjoying enjoying the TGI Friday experience (thank-goodness-it's Friday). We chose a Cafe-Rouge look-alike for dinner. No one seemed to be interested in directing us to a seat but there was a girl sitting at a table, who looked as though she was in charge, and she gestured around the restaurant giving us the impression that we could sit anywhere. As the evening progressed, and she continued smiling and nodding at us, it dawned on us that she wasn't an employee of the restaurant at all  but one of us. We felt a tad embarrassed but what can you do when you don't speak a word of the language. As she left, she had to pass by our table, which was awkward because she was loaded with shopping, more specifically, at least three large boxes of shoes. Well, shoes break down all barriers and we were soon treated to a display of gorgeousness (or is that recklessness) from Lanvin, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen. Email addresses were exchanged, promises to meet up the next time we were in Moscow, and the lovely Galina went on her way.

We like Russians.

Ballet Fabulous!

I have a feeling - a little je-ne-sais-quoi, two pairs of glazed eyes when mention of the word blog comes up - I'm going to be the only one posting on Ballet Steppes. But it could be worse, your author could be someone who doesn't know the difference between infer and imply, and a pas de bourree and a pas de quatre.

I'm going to start back to front. We have just returned from supper - sweet little place, sorry I don't know the name, but it is just up the road from here.

We had tapas and a great Rioja - a mere £25.

The reason we were in such high spirits was that we had escaped a fate worse than filling out a visa entry form. It's hard to believe we walked out of anything the Bolshoi could do - even on a bad day - but we did. Actually, Creation was not truly a Bolshoi production: it was a combined effort on the part of the Bolshoi and Ballet Preljocaj.

From the opening stomp of fifteen pairs of bare feet on bare boards to the accompaniment of some electronic burps, we knew we were in trouble. By the time two dancers, teetering like Naomi Campbell on platform heels - silver from head to toe - made their way downstage amid swirling monolithic slabs of grey polystyrene there was only one thing to do: leave. And in the wake of several other disenchanted members of the audience.

According to the programme notes, the choreographer, Angel Preljocaj, had originally named his conception, Apocalypse, given that the theme was taken from St John's Revelations, but somehow it had morphed into Creation. Here are a few of his own words.

"... the very word Apocalypse... evokes the idea of revealing, unveiling, or highlighting elements that could be present in our world but are hidden from our eyes. It should thus evoke what is nestled in the innermost recesses of our existence, rather than prophesizing [ shouldn't that be prophesying?] about compulsive waves of catastrophe, irreparable destruction, or the imminent end of the world."

I rest my case.

But, I put to you, is the destruction of the human race really an appropriate subject for a ballet? Where have all the sylphs gone? Could we please see some arched feet in pointe shoes and a great looking guy in tights with a big jump.

Just before Curtain Up.

Happily for us, we had seen several pairs of arched feet in pointe shoes earlier in the day - no men in tights though. Thanks to Gail's son, Mark - the ballet critic for The Daily Telegraph - we were invited to watch a company class. There were only a handful of dancers, this being the third day back after the summer break, but among them was Osipova, of whom more shortly. Class was taken by Marina Kondratieva whose voice barely rose above a whisper yet managed to convey the most complicated sequences of steps. With her delicate hands and exquisite epaulement it was easy to see the great dancer she once was.

It seems the place you occupy at the barre reflects your standing in the company, and the two dancers on either side of Osipova were fantastic. Yet even they paled against the incandescent Osipova. I swear her legs can revolve a full 360 degrees in their hip sockets, and, if that isn't enough, she can hold her extension for many seconds. She is the consumate ballerina. How privileged we were to have seen her.

Once class had finished, we stayed on to watch a rehearsal of the Czardas from Swan Lake, Act III. Sadly, we do not know the soloist's name but she was, somewhat predictably, amazing.

Here is a fuzzy photo of her.

Here's a better one of some of the company with Sue and Gail.

After rehearsal we were taken by Elena and Mikhail from the Press Office to the Bolshoi Theatre itself, which is being renovated. The grand opening is set for summer next year.

We three with Elena.

I have more to tell you but exhaustion and jet lag have set in.

Night-night.

We are here

Take off finally happened at 9 45 am - three excited passengers with copious amounts of hand baggage, including boxes of soap and chocolates for friends and helpers in Russia, carefully chosen by Trish, and six newspapers, three bottles of water, a thesaurus and a copy of How To Learn Cyrillic In 24 Hours.

We couldn't have had a better flight. Time flew by, largely because we spent most of it trying to fill out our visa entry forms. (There should be a webpage devoted to this.) For a start, the forms are tiny and you can't make a mistake - I don't know what the punishment might be but going to the end of the queue at Immigration could be the least of it. We couldn't decide whether the duration of our visit was according to our ticket dates or our visas, which provided for another five days in Russia... Anyway, ten visa forms later we made an executive decision and decided to go with the ticket dates. And as you can see, we were allowed in.

On arrival, Sue, being the paragon of efficiency that she is, marched us off to the taxi desk and organized transport into the city, which cost a fraction of the price it would have done otherwise. (Almost every taxi ride we've taken since then has cost 1000 roubles, whether we've come 40 miles from the airport or three blocks round Red Square (both trips taking the exact same time - the traffic in Moscow central has to be seen to be believed: despite 6 lanes in a one-way system, it's bumper to bumper and you need to think thin.)

Evidence of flight: please see photo on right!












Our hotel - The Savoy - is gorgeous. Edwardian grandeur beautifully renovated. Very clean. I want to take the bathroom home with me. We can see the domes of St Basil's Cathedral in Red Square from here, and we are almost across the road from SUM (not GUM) a Barney's/Harvey Nicks kind of store.

 Breakfast at The Savoy  is served in the Sistine Chapel, or at least a look-alike, with painted cherubs flying across the walls. They're obviously very civilized here and you can breakfast until 11 am. I cannot tell you what Sue and Gail had because they were leaving as I arrived but I can tell you the smoked salmon and black bread was fab.

But to backtrack.

We had our first meal in Moscow at Cafe Pushkin. And we nearly didn't. Our BA captain had informed us on landing that Moscow was two hours further forward than the UK. This would not have been a major problem had we not booked a table at the restaurant for 8 pm - and 8 o' clock means 8 o'clock. Thus, at 7 pm we were happily idling in our rooms when reception rang  "We have dreadful news for you...!" - had someone stolen our passports, had England been taken over by the Vatican? No, our taxi had been waiting half an hour for us and it was now 8 o'clock.

Everyone we knew who had been to Moscow said we had to go to Cafe Pushkin, and it did not disappoint.  Housed in a 19th Century mansion, we ate in the Library Restaurant on the first floor - which does indeed feel like eating in a dusty, candle-lit library. Our table was perched between a brass telescope and the musical duo (harpist and flautist; selections from The Magic Flute, Rosamunde and Don Q). Reading the menu took us nearly as long as deciphering the visa entry form, and explains why we spent nearly three hours there. The Russians do not seem to 'do' wine. There was a wine list but the cheapest bottle was around £70. (We thought about the cranberry juice but settled for two glasses of nice Bordeaux - a mere £20 - and a beer - really cheap at £8. The food was excellent, and worthy of its comparison to London's Ivy: we all chose Boeuf Stroganoff , which we could have eaten  twice over, it was so good, and three unbelievably delicious desserts, which probably provided our entire daily calorific quota in one mouthful.

Cafe Pushkin

Taxi home: 1000 roubles. Time taken: 10 minutes.


Night-night.

Trish

This is the fourth member of Team Russia, Patricia (Trish) O'Hear (Linton as she was known in the Royal Ballet Company).

Sadly, due to illness in the family, Trish cannot join us but we wanted to keep her spirit with us, so to speak. We will miss her very much.

This is her today, sitting next to Sue:

I was Gail Thomas, aged ten, when this photograph was taken in Auckland. I left New Zealand aged 16 to study at the Royal Ballet School and joined the Royal Ballet Company two and a half years later.

I married (the late) James Monahan
and we had two children - Mark is a Commissioning Editor and dance critic on the Arts Desk of The Daily Telegraph and Daisy, formerly a TV producer, is currently doing a law conversion course. They both live in London.


I try to keep fit, do voluntary work, go to a weekly art study group and for the last two years have been a governor of the Royal Ballet. I also like travelling, particularly to Italy, Australia and New Zealand.


My passions, apart from ballet, are music, opera, cinema, reading, my children, my friends, looking at paintings and trying to lure as many varieties of birds as possible into my garden.
                                             

This is me now.

                I was Susan Pryke and 11 years old when this photograph was taken. It was taken by the local newspaper when I got into White Lodge, the junior Royal Ballet School in Richmond Park, from which I eventually graduated into the Royal Ballet Company.

I have been married twice and from my first marriage I had two sons. Guy, the eldest, is a dive instructor living on a small island in Thailand. Sam has his own corporate entertainment business and lives in Leeds. Together they are developing a small holiday resort on Koh Tao in Thailand. My second marriage to William sadly ended after 27 years following his death from cancer in 2007.

I left the world of dance for over 30 years and became a barrister but, following William's death, I took up ballroom dancing which has now become my passion. Once a dancer always a dancer.

  This is me now.