The absolute degradation of the famous Russian ballet is shocking. Two ballerinas of the Bolshoi Theater perform the same dance. One is from back in the Soviet times, dancing beautifully at the age of 43. The second is 27 and is dancing today. She’s clearly a pathetic hack. How did she end up as the Bolshoi prima, then?
It’s simple. Her father is one of Putin’s cronies.
You don’t have to be a ballet connoisseur (I’m not) to see the difference:
Yes, the geriatric looking one is actually 15 years younger.
Clarissa's Blog 
“The second is 27 and is dancing today”
I don’t know much about ballet either, but the second isn’t actually terrible… just very… undistinguished… She belongs in a (small) provincial theater and headlining in a iconic capital of the form. They even have to slow down the music for her so there’s no live performance spark (sure the second is a performance and not a rehearsal?) and she doesn’t have very good extension, she can’t even stick out her heels correctly…
On the other hand I can’t enjoy the brilliance of the dancer on the left as much after seeing a documentary years ago about a russian ballet school that would make a forced labor camp seem like a more fun alternative (and surely the guards would be much nicer and more humane than the ballet teachers).
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Bolshoi toured in the US in the…. 80s? I forget what performance, but they graced our wee little civic center for the weekend, the place was packed to the rafters (whole town must’ve turned out) and my mom and her friends worked backstage as volunteers: last-minute costume repair, dressers, stitching the girls into their costumes. A small delegation took them shopping, where they bulk-purchased puzzling goods such as aspirin and tylenol, apparently to smuggle home. Somewhere mom still has a pair of tiny pointe shoes given her by one of the dancers (they wore them out pretty quick).
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That was the stuff of legends. And yes, these results were achieved with extremely cruel measures. I don’t know if it’s worth it but I’d rather not watch anything than the clumsy dancer in the second video.
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“Two ballerinas of the Bolshoi”
I showed the link to a colleague at work. He nodded in approval at the soviet dancer when I played the newer ‘dancer’ after a few second he asked “is it in slow motion?” He nodded again in understanding when I mentioned the ‘dancer’s father…
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I think the snob factor of they produce beautiful ballet rather than low-class Hollywood trash was a major reason for the popularity of the USSR.
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