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An Encounter With the Bolshoi Ballet

An Encounter With the Bolshoi Ballet

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Home Page > Arts & Entertainment > Music > An Encounter With the Bolshoi Ballet

An Encounter With the Bolshoi Ballet

Posted: Oct 07, 2008 |Comments: 0
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I as many who have read my articles may gather am a tremendous opera fan though in all sincerity I can not claim to be an equal devotee of the ballet, however this should not be interpreted that I do not take joy from it. Perhaps it is because my tastes lean more to the passion of the singers and the drama in the opera rather then the grace of the ballet dancer. What ever the reason I must claim to be a bigger opera fan then ballet fan but in all truth I am a lover of the ballet however I did not become one till I in Santiago, Chile met the members of the Bolshoi ballet. This was a time I will never forget as it made me see all the grace of the ballet however before this encounter with the Bolshoi I had seen them perform in Moscow and perhaps it is there that I was introduced to the ballet. My decision to visit the Soviet Union came during the fall of 1988. It was the time of perestroika, glasnosts and Michael Gorbachov, the new leader of the Soviet Union who many Americans had taken a liking to as they could see a certain honesty in him. I for my part can not claim that my desires to visit the Soviet Union were influenced in any way by Gorbachov as the real reason for my trip was based on my wanting to travel the world, in search of all those cities and places I had read about in my extensive readings of history. Of course this was also at a time in my life when I was entertaining dreams of becoming a professional photographer and had it in mind to take photographs of Leningrad (previously called Petrograd, presently Saint Petersburg) and Moscow. These cities seemed ideal for this purpose, both having architecture that was so diverse from New York and the feeling of history would be enormous. After all these were two cities that had been almost in the center of World War II and the Russian revolutions of 1917. The first of which overthrew Nicholas II while the second in October (though the Russian Orthodox calendar marks this day as having been in November) put the Bolsheviks in power. I had even wanted to visit the Soviet Union before but the matter had not been so simple as I would have wanted it. First off all because the Soviet Union was a closed society I needed a visa; not that this was an inconvenience as I had already visited many other communist countries such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the DDR, and Yugoslavia. These countries also requiring me as an American to have a visa. I can even add how there was a time in 1987 in which I as an American was required to have a visa in to order to enter France as opposed to being given one automatically upon entrance as was the case with most European countries. The Soviet Union however was different, even from other communist countries which only required me to go to their embassy or consulate, naturally with my passport, two photographs and the money to pay for the visa. The Soviet Union not only required me to have the already mentioned but a prepaid hotel where I would be staying, which basically meant that I would either have to reserve a hotel in the cities I wanted to go to before departing New York or go on what is commonly referred to as a “guided tour”. I not so much by my own choice took the second option of going on the guided tour even if in all truth I would have preferred to go alone. It was with the intension of spending Christmas and New Year’s day in the Soviet Union that I in early November booked myself on a tour that would include Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad, in that order. It was while visiting these cities in the Soviet Union that I observed many things, some of which were even strange or at least in my opinion for a communist country (me having already visited several) for instance, in the Soviet Union there were stores which only accepted hard currency (this meaning any currency which could be converted outside its country of origin) and were off limits to Soviet citizens. Yes, passports were checked upon entrance in to the stores. It was not that stores like this did not exist in Poland or other communist countries I had visited but contrary to the Soviet Union in those countries anybody could buy what they wished so long as they had the right kind of currency, in the Soviet Union it was a case of Soviets not even being allowed to enter the stores, let alone make purchases of any kind. Naturally just as there were stores in which only foreigners such as myself could enter, there were also stores in which foreigners were banned from as only Soviets could enter and again passports or documents were checked. I even recall how on one occasion, somebody I met asked me to buy him something in the store for foreigners only. The Soviet Union also had other factors which made it different from any of the Communist countries I had already visited for instance again only guests of hotels were allowed to enter as a control was set up at the entrance where one was obliged to show one’s card from the hotel. This however did not present so much of a problem for me nor for many Soviets (I refer to them as such as I can not in all honesty claim to have known who was Russian or from one of the many republics that made up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) who managed to get in to the hotel in spite of not being a guest of the hotel. Where the card required to enter the hotel was not a problem the fact that I was required to pay everything in hard currency was however more then slightly annoying as this made prices higher then they would have been had I been allowed to buy drinks or other such niceties in Rubbles, which I could get a lot more of on the black market. This however was not to be as hotels wanted hard currency not only for the cost of the room but even for what one purchased in them, this being in contrast to Polish hotels were one was only required to pay for the room in hard currency. It was in Moscow that I stayed in a hotel called “Cosmos” which I might add was the most exclusive at the time, though in all truth its standards were lower then those which I had known in the west. I arrived at the hotel on the 24th of December and on my second day of being in Moscow after having spent the first two sightseeing; I had what could be called my first experience in the Soviet Union. Two young men who must have been about my age at time (me being 21) knocked on the hotel room which I was sharing with one of the members of my tour group. It was in the company of another member of my tour that these two young men came asking if my roommate and I cared to barter trade. At first neither my roommate nor I knew what these two men had in mind and being in a country we knew not to be democracy; my American roommate, whose name completely escapes me and I were slightly apprehensive. It was one of these two young men who asked us if we had any blue jeans or anything we cared to trade such as American cigarettes or basically anything. I for my part felt I had nothing that would be worth their while as all I had was my cameras (which I was not ready to trade for anything), a couple of packs of cigarettes (me being a smoker at the time), the clothes I had brought with me (which included a pair of grey blue jeans that frankly speaking I was even slightly ashamed to even show given the condition they were in) and my cassettes which included some pop music. It did not take long with these two men and all those from my tour group who had come over to pick up a bargain; for the room I was sharing with a history teacher from Phoenix to become an national or international black market. Blue jeans were being exchanged for Russian fur hats, caviar (this being a French word as the Russian word is “ikra”) and other Russian goodies. It was inspired by the way these two Russians or so I think they were apparently willing to take just about any and everything we had that I decided to show them the old grey jeans I had bought over a year ago in London. Much to my near shock they accepted to take them for a black fur hat though given they were old they did ask me to throw in something extra which I did in the form of a pack of Marlboro which they accepted but however my having guilty feelings over the old jeans compelled me to add a tape by the British band known as “Led Zeppelin”. During these transactions; I noticed how people from two different countries and ways of life could trade and do business and though the English spoken by these two gentlemen was not exactly perfect it was understandable, making me think how even in a communist system it was always possible to find entrepreneurs. I even

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