Culture

Russian culture is flourishing. Nearly 1.5 million people work in this sector. In 2005, the Federal Culture Agency will receive an additional 4.5 billion rubles, taking its budget to 25 billion rubles.
Popular Russian authors whose works have been translated into European languages include: Viktor Pelevin, Tatiana Tolstaya, Viktor Yerofeyev, Vladimir Sorokin and Boris Akunin. Russian literary greats of the 20th century, such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesensky, are still writing today. Russians are increasing reading foreign literature in the original. The country has 52,177 libraries.
Russia has more than 2,000 museums, many of which have started to operate on a commercial basis and now often collaborate with leading world museums. For example, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow works closely with American, French, Italian and Spanish museums. In recent years, the Moscow History Museum exhibited in the United States, France and the Netherlands. Together with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the St. Petersburg Hermitage Museum established an exhibition center in Las Vegas. In 2004, the Hermitage held exhibitions in Monte Carlo (“Imperial St. Petersburg from Peter the Great to Catherine the Great”), Las Vegas (“In Pursuit of Pleasures”), London (an exhibition of Islamic art entitled “Heaven on Earth”), and in Berlin (“Malthrope and the Classical Tradition,” organized jointly with the Guggenheim Museum). Russian museums are rapidly introducing computer technologies.
There are more than 500 theatres in Russia. The most popular Moscow theatres are the Sovremennik Theater, the Lenkom (Leninist Komsomol) Theater and the Pyotr Fomenko Studio. Their repertoires include both classical and modern plays. Yevgeny Grishkovets is one of Russia’s innovative stage directors. Grishkovets is also a playwright and actor. His improvised performances have brought him acclaim (he has been invited to work at the famous Moscow Arts Theater). Every year, Moscow hosts international theater festivals.
The Bolshoi Theater has recently staged a number of the top foreign productions for Moscow audiences. The theater often invites famous foreign singers, ballet dancers, conductors and directors to participate in its productions. The Bolshoi ballet and opera often tour other countries. The most acclaimed productions of last season were Giuseppe Verdi’s “Macbeth,” Richard Wagner’s “Flying Dutchman,” and Sergey Prokofiyev’s “Fiery Angel.” This season’s premieres include the first version of Dmitry Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” which has never been staged at the Bolshoi before, and also Giorgio Strehler’s version of Verdi’s “Falstaff,” produced by Maria Bianca, and Leonid Desyatnikov’s opera “Rozental’s Children” (libretto by Vladimir Sorokin). In the new season, Moscow theatergoers will also be able to see Giacomo Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly,” a production by the American stage director Robert Wilson in collaboration with the Italian conductor Stefano Ranzani. The Bolshoi has six or seven premieres a year.
The St. Petersburg Maryinsky Theater is just as active as the Bolshoi. Culture is being revived in the Russian provinces as well. For instance, the Kuban Theater, which is run by the world-renowned choreographer Yuri Grigorovich, former ballet master of the Bolshoi Theater, tours all over the world. (Grigorovich’s most famous ballet productions include “Swan Lake,” “The Legend of Love” and “Raimonda.”)
After a decade of crisis, Russian cinema is making a steady comeback. In 2003, over 90 movies were made, compared to 50-60 in the previous years. In 2004, Yegor Konchalovsky’s “Anti-Killer-2” and Vladimir Khotinenko’s “72 Meters” did well on the Russian rental market, but the first Russian blockbuster “Night Watch” by Timur Bekmambetov was an unparalleled box-office hit. This mystical parable based on Sergei Lukyanenko’s novel about the redemption of Moscow, with its parade of special effects and computer tricks, has dispelled the myth that Russian movies cannot do well on the rental market. The American Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation has bought the distribution rights to “Night Watch” and also to its sequel, which has already been made. The corporation also intends to invest in the screen version of the final part of Sergei Lukyanenko’s trilogy.
One of the projects in the pipeline for this year is the film “Persona Non Grata,” which is to be produced by the Russian movie director Nikita Mikhalkov and the Polish veteran Krzysztof Zanussi.
By 2006, Russia plans to be making 100 feature movies a year, 65 cartoons, and 330 non-feature movies. This would give Russian movies a 25% share of the market. Although new movie theaters have opened in Russia they do not yet show very many Russian movies. At present, about 30 Russian movies are released on the big-screen every year. Russian moviegoers are mostly in the 12-35 age group.