In 1998 I took a group of older Theatretrain students to a country we wouldn’t visit today – Russia. We were originally going to perform at a theatre festival in Novosibirsk, Siberia but with a few weeks to go it was suddenly cancelled. It turned out that the city’s central heating system had broken down. I don’t know how the citizens coped with temperatures under -20.
All was not lost; we were suddenly offered Moscow instead. We went as the guests of Moscow’s Children’s Theatre and had a great time. When we arrived, we were all assigned families to stay with. All but one of our group were accommodated in twos and the oldest student Matt volunteered to go as the only single. It was interesting to see their homes. They all lived in flats that were comfortable and warm; I remember beautifully styled thick rugs on the floor. There was thick snow on the ground but the sights of Red Square, the Kremlin and the river were instantly recognisable.
They also arranged for us to visit Zagorsk, a holy place in the Russian Orthodox Church. This was beautiful, especially in the snow. The gorgeous bulb shapes in blue and gold revealed even more gold and icons on the inside.
Zagorsk almost rhymes with Borscht – which after the cold was a very welcome soup.
The theatre was cosy but well designed in the style of 100 years ago. We shared our performance and held joint workshops. As ever we found that young people of the same age get along well together even if they can’t speak each other’s language – maybe because they don’t speak the same language. One thing we discovered was that Russian young people don’t learn acting or drama, it seems to be only the children of actors who do that. Although they did learn folk dance and sang western and Russian songs.
It was a lot of fun and I’m sure the participants learnt a lot about life in Moscow. Soon it was over and we were back to the airport. It is always nice to travel and we’ve done so many times over the years but it’s also nice to sit back in your seat in the aircraft and hear the soothing tone of the captain as he says, “Welcome aboard this Boeing 777 aircraft.” After hearing nothing but Russian for 10 days it’s also nice to come back down to earth.
