Moscow State Circus

Exhausted from our day’s tour of the city and an incomplete night’s sleep on the train, we check into the hotel.  Our hotel was quite nice, the beds much better than the ones we have back in St. Petersburg, we had a TV (I have seen no TV since leaving home), and it was located literally at a Metro stop making getting back and forth to downtown a breeze.  W where able to get some food and rest up for our evening’s main entertainment, the Moscow State Circus.

We took a bus to the circus, and Moscow traffic and its street/freeway system reminded me oddly of LA’s.  I guess it is just more like that of a normal big city then the roads around here in St. Petersburg.  We arrived a bit before the show was to start and where therefore able to walk around the nice park where the circus is located and some people in the group took the opportunity to buy outrageous souvenirs or accessories available there.  I did like these balloons with faces, arms and legs:

When it came time to enter the circus (and like at every other public gathering place in Russian it involves going through metal detectors and bags checks) we were in for a bit of culture shock. In the lobby they had excellent droughts for sale which I did eat a whole bag of, but also something a bit more troubling.  They had animals in the lobby to take pictures with; however most of the animals looked either very depressed or drugged.  They had some normal house pets like cats, dogs and rabbits but also a few foxes and other small wild animals so far out of their natural habitat.  It’s not my place to judge animal rights in Russia, but we also found it rather sad and where ready to move away from that are as soon as possible.

Then we moved into the stage are of the circus, and I must say it was quite an impressive setup.  Unlike the circuses or related performances I have seen before, they have a full time facility with well designed rigging for acrobats, an amazing movable floor, a bandstand for their 20 piece band, and multiple stages along the sides for side acts while they prepared the next main act.

The show had a train station theme (each act was like a different stop along the line) and was aimed at a much younger audience then us.  However as we are still just learning Russian, our vocabulary levels are much younger then our ages, and therefore I was able to understand quite a bit of what they said during the course of the show.  The first act was quite an interesting, almost Broadway like, musical dancing and singing number.  Then they had a pair of what I guess could only be called clowns but they were really physical comedians/magicians/mimes who would perform between acts whole they set up more complex acts.

They had acts with quite well trained dogs and sea lions which I have seen before in the US, but what I was not ready for where the bears! They had at least 4 trained bears that did all kinds of tricks, including riding a motorcycle and a handstand!

Additionally they had 3 different acts with quite amazing acrobats and 2 magicians who were quite good.  The show was quite modern in many senses, and seemed at times like the outrageous openings to large events like the Olympics with their glowing outfits and bizarre musical choice.

Overall the show was quite an entertaining event, and considering how much the tickets cost (less than 10 USD) it was well worth it.  And though it may not seem like the most cultural place, the Russian circus is quite a famous institution and truly represents a cultural aspect worth of study and consideration.

Next time… We venture into Lenin’s Mausoleum, the heart of the Kremlin and have time to explore the streets of Moscow.