The Bright Stream

Went to a ballet Friday night at the Bolshoi called "The Bright Stream." It was pretty fan-freaking-tastic. Originally the ballet had been written during Stalin's time and was a major propaganda piece for the Communist system. The ballet is about a troupe of artists who visit a collective farm during the harvest. One of the ballerinas is a friend of Zina, a girl on the farm. Her husband begins to wander and make advances on the ballerina but she is happily married. She and her husband convince Zina to play a joke on her husband to ward off his advances along with those of an old dacha dwelling couple who have taken an interest in the ballerina and her husband. Comedy ensues as the ballerina dresses up as her husband and the husband as his wife. When all is revealed Pyotr (Zina's husband) begs her forgiveness, all is well and the harvest is completed. The Soviet theme is or course how wonderful peasant life is and how much peasants love to work. Giant veggies and fruits are rolled across the stage showing how bountiful and productive life is in Soviet Russia. The ballet is so comedic in the fact that it's hard to believe the Communist party actually wanted people to believe that this is how life was in the USSR. Regardless the ballet was amazing, the dancing was beautiful and the set and costumes perfect. LOVE LOVE LOVED IT!

Oh another note...on the way home from the ballet, Chavala and I stopped at Kroshka Kartoshka (a food kiosk) and got a snack. We were on the way home talking about how much we loved cheese (I got toast and cheese and she got a backed potato with cheese) and the next thing I knew I was flat on my ass in the snow and ice. There was no warning, no slipping, no slow motion effect where I could have tried to catch myself. I was just walking one minute and on my back staring up at the polluted Russian sky the next. Chavala, good friend that she is, instead of asking "Are you all right?" instead asked "You didn't drop the cheese did you?" We were cracking up! It was so hysterical. So now I have a bruise the size of a baseball on my hip and the left side of my lower back kind of hurts but I consider it my initiation into snow weather. :)