There are signs that Russia’s cultural isolation may be easing.
The Bolshoi has been invited to Serbia and Thailand next month.
Its new chief Valery Gergiev is pulling out all the stops to break out onto the world stage.
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Swan Lake has been done to death over the years – almost – with regular performances at the annual Bangkok Dance and Music Festivals. Even with tickets up to US$230, the Russian government is obviously putting up some of the cash to enable the Bolshoi visit. But then Russia and Thailand have quite a cosy little relationship. Russians require no visas to enter Thailand for up to 60 days and are treated the same as nationals from the USA, the UK and Japan. It used to be a special 90 days for Russians but there were many complaints from Thais and some tourists from other countries about the behaviour of some Russian tourists that the length was reduced. There has also been concern expressed that some younger Russians have been escaping the draft for the war in Ukraine. Little wonder that Russians have been flooding into popular destinations like Phuket and Pattaya.
Didn’t know some Russian tourists have ‘special behaviour’ that no other tourists in the world have , sure buddy .
That Russian mafias control parts of both the Thai cities I mentioned seems ‘special’ and not like other tourists.
Thailand never sanctioned Russia, so no surprise here. As for Belgrade, I expect that our former “Slavic brothers” from Bulgaria, Montenegro, etc will block their airspace to prevent Bolshoi entering Serbia.
There are daily commercial flights between Moscow and Belgrade on Air Serbia, they can just buy the artists tickets, no chartered flight needed. Transporting sets, costumes and instruments is of course more tricky. That was NATO’s plan all along – win the war by stopping Russia exporting tutus. That’ll show ’em.
Russians going to Belgrade hardly constitutes an easing of cultural isolation.