Russian Ballet

Back when planning we decided to splurge on the Russian Ballet excursion. The ship offered two options and we went with the fancy ballet in the Marlinski Theater. Our day tour was supposed to be 8 hours so we thought we would have plenty of time to change into our fancy outfits we brought specifically for the ballet. However we had a note on our first day saying that we might need to take our clothes and change in the terminal bathrooms. Of course we didn’t understand since we thought our eight hour tour would be eight hours which would have given us plenty of time. Our first reaction was that we just wouldn’t go to the ballet but as we calmed down we decided to go a little more casual to the ballet and just take a change of shoes. It ended up we had about an hour to jump on the ship change and get back to the bus.

After our mad dash to change I grabbed a couple pieces of bread to tide me over (remember we had the world’s worst boxed lunch) and headed to the bus.
Of course the light rain we had at the end of our tour had turned into a storm when we left for the ballet. It wasn’t that far to the bus but we did get a little wet. I had a handy bag to carry my wet umbrella in my purse which came in handy( Angie made fun of me for buying it but I have used it many times on this trip and highly recommend it if you come across one, I found mine at marshals for around $5.)

The theater was beautiful. We heard later on our trip that the chandelier is the biggest in St Petersburg which is impressive since we had seen a lot of gorgeous chandeliers. It is a beautiful bowl shaped chandelier with the crystal draping from the top to come together at the bottom. My picture does not do it justice. Beside the chandelier the there was a lot of gold leaf which has been typical in St Petersburg. They definitely loved shiny things.

The theater was a little smaller than I expected with only one floor with a row of box seats about half a flight up just circling the main seats. The seats were just regular chairs and extremely hard and uncomfortable. I am glad we were not seeing a longer show.

The ballet was Swan Lake and it was amazing. The dancers, especially the white/black swan was exceptional She had the most prima ballerina bow I have ever seen. Of course at dinner the night before a Ukrainian woman was quick to tell us that everybody knew the ballet season didn’t start in August so none of the best ballerinas would be dancing for our show. They would just be students but no one told the main ballerina because she danced and bowed like a pro.

On the way the tour guide told us there would be one intermission and the show would last less than 3 hours. We were so tired at the end of the second act we thought it was over. Forget the fact that the white swan hadn’t come back to win back the prince or that they hadn’t bowed, Margaret and I headed out of the theater. One our way out we got a piece of paper which of course we couldn’t read but finally got the hint when we were outside in the rain with all the smokers. We used our price of paper to renter the theater and climbed over everyone back to our seats to watch the third act. Luckily it was short. Of course they took there bows but only those who had danced in the last act so basically just all the swans and the prince. The other male dancers were left out. Felt really stupid for thinking it was over before the bows but you never know it was Russia.

Sure it was over we headed out to find our bus. It was still raining but now that it was getting dark it was really cold. It felt like winter in Texas. I had thought it would be fun to see the city with snow but I could barely handle rain in the summer so ok Russia winters for me.

We made it back to the ship just in time to grab a piece of pizza before they closed down the buffet.

It was a busy day but we saw a lot and had a great time. One more day of St Petersburg before we head out of Russia.