Voices from Russia

Premier danseuse of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Natalia Bessmertnova

The outstanding Russian ballerina Natalia Bessmertnova has died. A classical lyrical-style dancer, Natalia Bessmertnova was the leading soloist of the world-famous Bolshoi Theatre for more than 30 years. Today, the Bolshoi Theatre mourns their tragic loss. Commemorating the famous premier danseuse, Aleksei Ratmansky, the artistic director of the ballet troupe of the Bolshoi Theatre, called her the “greatest poetic soul of the Bolshoi Theatre”. Her ballet style was a combination of romantic fragility and great inner force, and her polished technique enabled her to dance various roles. For many decades, Natalia Bessmertnova was one of the favourite ballerinas of ballet lovers all over the world. Her death is a great loss for world ballet.

Natalia Bessmertnova was also the wife and inspiration, and in the past few years the assistant, of the famous choreographer Yuri Grigorovich. For her, he created bright choreographic images in the most significant of his productions, including Spartakus by Aram Khachaturian, The Legend About Love by Arif Melikov, and Ivan Grozny, which was set to the music of Sergei Prokofiev. Ms Bessmertnova excelled in the performance of the leading parts in the famous ballets of Pyotr Chaikovsky.

However, Giselle is considered to be her best role (a ballet by Adolf Adam). It is precisely the role of Giselle that ballet lovers linked the image of the ballet-dancer with: Giselle is a romantic ballet filled with estranged dreaminess. Giselle, as performed by Natalia Bessmertnova, was a great triumph all over the world. Critics wrote that “people need to believe in the triumph of spirituality as is shown by the convincing persuasiveness and beauty of Bessmertnova’s dance.

Natalia Bessmertnova was known for her romantic style, but, as it is well-known, it is impossible to teach students to interalise the romantic style. The romantic style, the organic quality of Natalia Bessmertnova’s talent, was praised during her first tours abroad as a member of the Bolshoi Theatre ballet troupe. This occurred in Britain in 1956 when the young dancer performed only small parts.

However, acute connoisseurs of ballet art understood early enough that Natalia Bessmertnova would be one who would be able to realise and further develop the traditions of the Russian classical ballet, who would continue its glorious history, and whose name would be added to the list of the legendary Russian ballet-dancers such as Anna Pavlova and Galina Ulanova.

26 March 2008

Olga Bugrova

N. Viktorova

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24785&cid=62&p=26.03.2008 (in Russian and English)

Holy Rus from the Adoption of Christianity to the Reign of Pyotr Veliki… such is the name of an exposition that will open at the Louvre in Paris. It shall concern itself with the history of the development and advance of Christian art in Russia. This exhibition in Paris, one that is expected to become one of the most significant events of the Year of Russia in France, will open in 2010. This monumental museum project shall give visitors a chance to learn more about the distant past.

After embracing Christianity at the end of the 10th century, Old Rus became a Christian state. The first blossoming of Christian art was during the time of 14th to the 15th-century. It is linked to the development of important centres of that time such as Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, and Moscow, where artists working in the monasteries later became well-known all over the world, including Monk Dionysius, Greek master Feofan, who lived and worked in Russia, and his great disciple St Andrei Rublyov.

The 16th century, when Russia became a powerful centralised Christian power, is regarded as the “golden age” of sacred art. Moscow, the capital of Russia, was often referred to as the “Third Rome”. Its historical mission in the world was the preservation of the Orthodox Church. The idea of the “Third Rome” found reflection in the architecture of churches. Besides, the exhibition provides information about the rule of Peter the Great, who carried out the radical reform of the Russian Orthodox Church, which led to other secular priorities in state policy. The opening of a “window into Europe” promoted the interaction between the Russian and the European cultural and spiritual traditions.

Russian and French representatives discussed the details of this project in the residence of the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia in Moscow. Patriarch Aleksei made a proposal to actualise the idea of the exposition. “The ideal of Holy Rus has not lost its actuality today. As before, it is regarded today as a moral and cultural landmark for millions of Russian Orthodox believers in this country and abroad”, the patriarch emphasised.

For his part, Henri Loyrette, the director of the Louvre Museum, said, “I’ve been in love with Russia for many years now, and it is very important for me that I can offer information about a great world we know so little about. There are only a few Russian facilities in France, and the lack of Russian art in Louvre is a great shock to me”. M Loyrette said that the first step to fill the gap shall be the exposition, Holy Rus from the Adoption of Christianity to the Reign of Pyotr Veliki.

26 March 2008

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24793&cid=62&p=26.03.2008 (in Russian and English)

Russian film director Anna Melikyan

The Russian film Rusalka, directed by the young film director Anna Melikyan, has won the Critics’ Prize at the 58th Berlin Film Festival. “The lucky placing of my film at the festival was a surprise for me”, Ms Melikyan said. “The point is that I wanted my film to be shown all over the country. By the way, it has been screened in Russia since last autumn and it has been a great success”.

The most interesting things occur after the film ends, when the filmgoers are leaving the cinema halls, Ms Melikyan said. “Each viewer finds something in it… something which is not inherent in them. It’s always a shock to me. I understand that this is the main thing that you shoot your films for, to make people see the film and encourage them to think about something that is very important”.

Rusalka is a melodramatic story about a girl with green hair, who can realise people’s wishes. But, her unique talents, as well as her good soul, deplorably, were not estimated at their true worth. A sad fairy-tale for adults… this is how the film critics define the genre of Anna Melikyan’s work. In January of this year, this film won an award from the Sundance independent film festival in the United States.

Anna Melikyan is 31 years old, and Rusalka is her second full-length film. She brought her first film Mars to the “Berlinale” in 2004. Her short films took part in prestigious Russian and international film festivals. The most well-known of them are Kontrabas and Do vostrebovaniya. Not only filmgoers, but, also professionals show great interest in her films. “Melikyan offers a new film-style”, critics say, stressing that her works are a mix of invention and reality, combined in a proportion one can characterise as “neither too sweet nor too bitter”.

26 March 2008

Olga Bugrova

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24782&cid=62&p=26.03.2008 (in Russian and English)

Sergei Prokofiev 

St Petersburg will play host to the 5th International Sergei Prokofiev Competition from 10 to 22 April. The Prokofiev Competition is one of Russia’s major international music festivals; it is a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions under UNESCO aegis. It was established in 1991 to mark the centenary of the birth of the Russian classicist composer Sergei Prokofiev. Since then, it has been held regularly in St Petersburg, a city where the composer studied and lived for many years.

Young musicians compete in three categories: piano, orchestral conducting, and composition. This year, conductors and composers will arrive in St Petersburg from 23 countries, including Great Britain, Germany, Spain, the United States, Japan, and China. They all won acclaim in their countries and hope for international recognition if they are a success in St Petersburg.

Participants in the “composition” category were selected last December by a jury that scrutinised the music they sent. The jury was headed by world-famous composer Rodion Shchedrin. Twelve compositions won the right to be performed in the concert programme of the competitions: five pieces for solo instruments and seven works for solo instruments with orchestra. Conductors were selected by the jury viewing video clips (of them directing). According to the prominent Russian conductor and composer Yuri Falik, who headed the jury in this category, there were many who proved worthy: 47 participants were allowed in the first round.

The Sergei Prokofiev Competition is a magnet for young musicians. The jury listened to over 130 video clips! There are brilliant maestros, bright interpreters of present-day and classical music among the participants. It is amazing, but, many young women are now active in conducting, and they look convincing. Let’s hope that the competition will reveal more talented musicians. Competitors will demonstrate their skill with the three leading orchestras of St Petersburg. In one of the three rounds of the competition, conductors are expected to perform parts from symphonies and piano concertos of Sergei Prokofiev.

Performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s compositions brought victory at the 2003 competition to a young resident of St Petersburg, Vasili Petrenko. At present, his name is world-famous. He has performed with many renowned symphony orchestras, and he has recently become the director of the Liverpool Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

21 March 2008

Larissa Roshchina

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24588&cid=62&p=21.03.2008 (in Russian and English)

Today, the Moscow Patriarchate is doing what it can to prevent a church schism that, it believes, would be “a grave wound to Russian Orthodoxy”.

A Church schism in the Ukraine and the consequent separation of the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) from the mother church could take place this year. This was said by Sergei Markov, a prominent Russian political scientist and deputy head of the Russian State Duma committee on the affairs of public and church organisations, in Moscow on 25 March. Mr Markov believes that one of the reasons for the split is an attempt by the incumbent Ukrainian authorities to make the gap between Ukraine and Russia even wider. According to Mr Markov, what is taking place today in the Ukraine is irregular. He described the attempt to split our two neighbouring nations on religious grounds as a crime.

The first attempt to split the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine was taken in the 1990s. It was initiated by the anathematised MP cleric “Metropolitan” Philaret “of Kiev and all Ukraine”. Following the demands of some in the Ukrainian political elite, he lobbied for the separation of the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) from the MP. Metropolitan Kyrill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, the head of the Department of External Church Relations of the MP, said that preservation of Church unity is an enormous task.

He said, “What we mean is the preservation of the unity of a spiritual and cultural world, one that we can describe as a Russian world, not in the ethnic sense of the word, but, in a historical one. This is the world that emerged from the Baptism of Russia in Kiev (in 988). Furthermore, this is not only a church concept, it is also a cultural concept, and, if I may say so, a geopolitical one. No one calls in question the unity of Ukrainian Roman Catholics and Greek-Catholics with the Vatican, even though the Vatican is a foreign centre beyond the Ukrainian border. No one calls into question the subordination of Ukrainian Protestants to a number of Protestant centres far from the Ukraine. Therefore, we clearly sense a political undercurrent in the agitation for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to secede from the MP, and this is certainly a political project”.

Metropolitan Kyrill is convinced that a church schism in the Ukraine would further the aims of other religious bodies, not just secular political groups. Weakened by discord, the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would fall victim to proselytising by other Christian confessions, be they Roman Catholics, Protestants, or Uniates. Since the mid-1990s, these confessions have stepped up their activity, and they have given help to the advocates of schism in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, providing them with financial and moral support.

In conclusion, Metropolitan Kyrill stressed that the mission of the Church is to unite people and not to separate them. The Moscow Patriarchate carries out this mission, uniting people in many countries.

26 March 2008

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24763&cid=59&p=26.03.2008 (in Russian and English)

His Holiness Aleksei Mikhailovich Rediger, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia

The Moscow Patriarchate will help the people of Serbia to cope with the crisis caused by the UDI of Kosovo. The announcement was made by the Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and all Russia as he addressed an annual session of the International Orthodox Unity Foundation.

Kosovo is awash with Serbian blood, but, the world community turns a blind eye to it. The Kosovo issue is being decided by those who have never been there and know nothing of what Kosovo means to the Serbs. Both Russia and the Moscow Patriarchate, Patriarch Alexei said, sympathise with the Serbs and are ready to grant them whatever help they need.

Churches that were built in the 14th and 15th centuries, supposedly under the protection of UNESCO, are now being destroyed in Kosovo, he said, with the tacit consent of both the European public and politicians. The patriarch stated that we feel sympathy for the people of Serbia, who are losing a land they considered sacred. The Russian Orthodox community is grateful to President Vladimir Putin for ordering financial support for Kosovo Serbs at such a time.

The Moscow Patriarchate is going to work out a special humanitarian programme to support the Serbs through their time of hardship. The project was initiated by the International Fund of Unity of Orthodox Peoples, founded in 1995 with the blessing of his Holiness, who also is the chairman of the board of the body. The organisation is notable for its charity campaigns not only in Russia, but, also abroad.

The programme of assistance to the Serbian nation will be developed together with the Russian Healthcare and Foreign Ministries. It was announced that in mid-2008 that a cultural exchange will be launched with a performance of the “Voices of Orthodox Russia” choruses. This will be a cultural and spiritual message to all peoples and nations in the name of peace and creation. “We hope that ‘The Voices of Orthodox Russia’ will bring peace to Kosovo”, Patriarch Aleksei concluded.

27 March 2008

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24834&cid=59&p=27.03.2008 (in Russian and English)

Daniel Fried, US Assistant Secretary of State

In an interview with the Voice of America, the US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said that NATO plays a positive role in supporting European stability, and that in all of Russia’s history its borders have never been so reliably protected as they are at present owing to NATO and the European Union.

The US diplomat said that he voiced his opinion as a historian, not a politician. If so, he missed the target… his statement was made exactly 9 years after NATO launched its aggression against former Yugoslavia. At that time, NATO and US strategists also assured the world that one of their aims was to ensure stability and security in Europe. Yet, the NATO operation titled Merciful Angel had devilish consequences for the Yugoslav population. Bombardments and missile strikes which continued for 78 days ruined that country’s economy, power engineering, infrastructure, churches, and schools, pushing Yugoslavia ten years back in its development. The damage has been estimated at 100 billion US dollars. Two and a half thousand people fell victim to the devilish operation. Let’s hope that the self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo is the last act of so-called mercy committed by the US and NATO in Europe.

Russia is not Yugoslavia or Iraq; it is not a country that the United States and NATO can bully from a position of strength. Yet, Moscow clearly sees and analyses the methods and means they use to promote their interests in the world. Bearing this in mind, Russia sees NATO’s expansion to the east as a threat to its security. Certainly, it is foolish to claim that new NATO bases in Bulgaria and Romania and US anti-missile facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland will ensure Russia’s national interests.

Americans and NATO member-states are very clever at giving nice names to their military and foreign policy operations. They say they bring to other nations freedom, democracy, and prosperity… as if NATO is not a military bloc, but, a charity society with global responsibility. It is well to remember that, in the years of the cold war, the United States called its most powerful nuclear missile the Peacekeeper. You can imagine what kind of peace its ten warheads could bring to other nations, and they were much more powerful than those that were dropped on the heads of residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Probably, Mr Fried, as a politician and historian, wants to forget it, but, he must understand that Russian leaders shall be guided by the realities of geopolitics and not by the supposedly benevolent declarations coming from Washington and Brussels.

25 March 2008

Viktor Yenikeyev

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24732&cid=58&p=25.03.2008 (in Russian and English)

Logo of Interpol 

The Serbian enclave of Kosovo, which recently declared independence, has turned into a major drug trade centre. According to Interpol, Europol, and the FBI, Kosovo is at the crossroads of global drug smuggling routes.

One of the reports submitted to the US Congress describes Albania and Kosovo as the heart of the Balkan route, which links Pakistan and Afghanistan with Europe. 80 percent of heroin is channelled there via Kosovo. The links between Albanian crime groups and South American drug cartels have acquired dangerous proportions.

According to UN experts, the Albanian drug mafia is the most powerful criminal gang in Europe, controlling heroin trade in many countries of the continent. A Western diplomat working in the Balkans said the territories of Albania, Kosovo, and Western Macedonia are huge drug depots storing tons of drugs. An employee with the Russian Civil Service Academy, Natalia Frolova, said that the forced separation of Kosovo from Serbia in 1999, besides breaching Serbian sovereignty and territorial integrity, also caused chaos, playing into the hands of crime groups.

Sustainable drug traffic has a close connection with trading in weapons and the functioning of terrorist-training centres, which makes it a whole criminal network, she said. For this reason, the world community should repulse the aggressor. The UDI of Kosovo from Serbia has been accompanied by an increase in criminal activities, which is a challenge we all should recognise and set our minds to deal with.

In the estimates of Interpol, Kosovo has long witnessed a link between crime groups and local extremists which hinges on family and social clans. Dmitri Rogozin, the Russian representative to NATO, is convinced that the UDI of Kosovo was, among other things, the result of pressure from criminal groups. In addition, the lobbyists soliciting services from some of the foreign politicians who recognised Kosovo may well have paid the pols off with dirty money from Albanian drug dealers. In any case, Russian special services (intelligence agencies) possess information that Kosovo has grown into a major crossing point for the smuggling of Asian drugs into Europe.

29 March 2008

Vyacheslav Soloviev

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24924&cid=58&p=29.03.2008 (in Russian and English)

Marius Petipa (1818-1910), choreographer of Chaikovsky’s ballets (photo taken in 189

An open competition was launched in St Petersburg for the first monument in the world to the universally-renowned ballet maestro choreographer Marius Petipa. A native of Marseille in France, born in 1818, he was invited to Russia in 1847 where he developed his choreographic talents in full measure. Over some 50 years, the great choreographer created over 60 ballet productions at St Petersburg’s Imperial Theatre, including such masterpieces as Don Quixote, La Bayadère (Temple Dancer), Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake. His ballet productions are still alive today and have been used as a basis for subsequent ballet versions. Marius Petipa died in 1910.

26 March 2008

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24791&cid=51&p=26.03.2008 (in Russian and English)

The Golden Mask Theatre Festival kicks off in Moscow today, which marks International Theatre Day. Companies from many cities in Russia are showing off the best of their repertoire in all imaginable genres, including dramas, operas, ballets, operettas, musicals, and puppet shows. Audiences will be introduced to the “Legendary 20th Century Works” project, which this year features Harlequin, the Servant of Two Masters by Piccolo Teatro di Milano in Italy. The jury has named the winners of major prizes, including the “Prize of Honour”. The prize-awarding ceremony has been scheduled for 15 April.

27 March 2008

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=24821&cid=51&p=27.03.2008 (in Russian and English)