Culture
Russia is rightfully considered to be one of the most “reading” countries. There are 52,177 libraries here. Among the most popular writers whose books are translated into European languages one can name Viktor Pelevin, Tatiana Tolstaya, Viktor Erofeev, Vladimir Sorokin, Boris Akunin. Such classics of the modernity as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Evgeny Evtushenko, Andrey Voznesensky are still working and giving birth to new books. The Russians are reading foreign literature in the original more and more often.
Museums of Russia – and there are more than 2000 of them – expand their display grounds and frequently organize exchange exhibitions with the world’s leading museums. Thus, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow closely cooperates with museums from the USA, France, Italy, Spain. The Moscow Historic Museum has several times exported parts of its collection to the USA, France and Netherlands. St. Petersburg Hermitage in cooperation with Solomon Guggenheim Fund founded an exhibition complex in Las-Vegas and organized exhibitions in Monte-Carlo (“The Emperor St. Petersburg from Peter the Great till Catherine II”), Las-Vegas (“Chasing Pleasures”), London (the collection of the Islam art “Heavens on Earth”) and Berlin in cooperation with Guggenheim Museum (“Mapplethorpe and the classical tradition”).
There are more than 500 theaters in Russia. Some of the Moscow’s most popular ones are “Sovremennik”, “Lenkom”, “Petr Fomenko’s Studio”. Their repertoire includes both classics and modern plays. Among the masters of new genres one can name a director, actor and playwright Evgeny Grishkovets, who creates impromptu plays (E. Grishkovets now works at the famous Moscow Art Theatre (MHAT)). Moscow annually houses international theatre festivals that are attended by companies from all over the world.
The Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow stages best foreign plays and invites foreign stars – dancers, singers, conductors and directors. The ballet and opera company of the Bolshoy Theatre tours all around the world. The Bolshoy theatre offers 6-7 premier performances annually.
The art life of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg is not less intense. Cultural life is also regenerating in other cities and towns of Russia. For example, the Theatre of Kuban headed by the great choreographer Grigorovich, who was the chief ballet-meister of the Bolshoi Theatre for years, is touring all around the world. Grigorovich’s most famous ballet performances include “The Swan Lake”, “The Legend of Love”, “Raimonda”.
The Russian cinematography is also recovering after a decade of crisis and is getting more influential every year. 2003 has seen the release of 90 motion pictures (while during the previous years this figure did not exceed 50-60).
It is planned to increase the annual production of motion pictures to 100, the production of animated films to 65 and non-fiction films to 330 items by the year 2006. The desired share of the Russian film production in general release should reach 25%. New cinema halls are being opened in Russia; however, the share of Russian movies shown there is still quite small. At the moment the number of films annually set in general release in Russia is about 30. The average age of cinema-goers in Russia is between 12 and 35.