Russia is a great country with multiple tourism opportunities to offer. When you travel to Russia via Russia tour, you’ll be able to enjoy most of these opportunities based on which options you have chosen for your trip to Russia plans. St. Petersburg is one of the significant cities in the tour to Russia because it has more than enough attractions and historical places inside the city and in its suburban area. We are talking about museums like the Hermitage and Museum of Political History; palaces like Peterhof and Alexander Palace and Catherine Palace in Pushkin; Cathedrals and churches like Kazan Cathedral and St. Isaac’s Cathedral; gardens such as the Summer Garden and Mikhailovsky Garden; entertainment centers like Eliseyev Emporium and the Singer House, and many other attractions that delight tourists from all around the world.
Besides the places, there are lots of things that you can do in St. Petersburg tour to enjoy your travel to Russia, for example, you can visit the New Holland for a family treat, or you can enjoy a lovely romantic afternoon on the Neva River canals with your partner; you can visit Yelagin Island for some amazing sceneries or a fresh air. As you can see, there are lots of places and multiple activities that you can try in your St. Petersburg tour, but there’s something that everyone must try during their travel to Russia, and that’s performance art.
One of the main attractions of Russia and especially St. Petersburg is performance art, from Russian Ballet, theatre, circus, and opera to music concerts of any genre, Russia has them all. We at the Star Travel Group encourage our tourists to go and see Russian art performances, particularly ballet because Russain ballet is one of the top technics of performance in the world, and there’s no other place better than Russia to witness it. Though circus is also popular and famous in Russia, ballet is more popular with multiple halls for people to see Russian ballet, such as Theater of Musical Comedy, Hermitage Theater, Aurora Ballet Hall, Carnival Concert Hall, and Mariinsky Theatre Hall.
Mariinsky Theatre locates on the Theatre Square, which acquired its name from the legendary Bolshoi Theater, but currently, the square is famous because of the Mariinsky Theater. If you decide to visit Mariinsky Theatre or the Theatre Square on your trip to St. Petersburg, you can also visit Yusupov Palace, which is only five minutes of walk from Theater Square. The Mariinsky Theater named after the wife of Alexander II, Empress Maria Alexandrovna. You can find a bust of the Empress in the main reception hall.
Although the Mariinsky Theater was constructed in 1860, the history of the Mariinsky Theater dates back to 1783, when the Bolshoi Theatre was opened on Theater Square -back then was the Carousel Square- on the order of establishment of a theater company for music and performances. Antonio Rinaldi was the architect of the new Bolshoi Theater, which was equipped with top equipment and the most up-to-date tools for a theater stage. Several Russian, Italian, and French companies were performed on that stage.
In 1802 the first major restoration of the Bolshoi Theater went underway, and Thomas de Thomon had modified both external appearance and internal layout of the theater, which made it one of the major architectural attractions of St. Petersburg in that time. During the massive fire of 1811, the exterior of the Bolshoi Theater was heavily damaged and the interior was completely ruined. The restoration took around seven years, and the theater was once again opened on the 3rd of February 1818.
When the restored Bolshoi Theater opened again, the golden age of the theater had started. Many international and famous Russian artists had performed on the stage of Bolshoi Theater. Alberto Cavos had begun the reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater in 1836 to improve the acoustics, view, capacity, interior, and exterior of the theater. Cavos was also the architect of the Mariinsky Theater, which was built on the site of destroyed -by fire- Circus Theater.
By the end of the 19th century, most of the companies, which had until then continued to perform in the Bolshoi Theater, were transferred to the Mariinsky Theater; that was one of the reasons why the Mariinsky Theater has undergone several renovations in that time. The first one was in 1885 when Viktor Schröter attached a three-story-wing to the theater for practice rooms and theater workshops. The next one was in 1894, when Schröter reconstructed the façade, enlarged the wings, and replaced the wooden rafters with steel and concrete.
Following the October Revolution, the Mariinsky Theater nationalized, and Bolsheviks had changed its name to State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet at first, and later to Sergei Mironovich Kirov Theater. From the beginning of the second world war and the Siege of Leningrad, the Mariinsky Theater was closed and remained closed until the war had ended. In the late 1960s, the theater underwent a complete reconstruction, and the left-wing took its current form. On January 16th, 1992, the theater name changed back to its historic name, Mariinsky Theater.
St. Petersburg is one of the best places for tourists to see a Russian ballet performance on their trip to Russia. Mariinsky Theater is one of the oldest ballet companies and halls in St. Petersburg, which makes it a historical place of st. Petersburg as well. If you have plans to travel to Russia with your children, we at the Star Travel Group suggest you visit Mariinsky Theater with your children because they have a daily children's musical show about mostly Russian fairytales, which both children and their parents would enjoy.
We at the Star Travel Group also recommend all the tourists who want to take a trip to Russia read our weblog to learn more about the top attractions of Russia, the best places for shopping in St. Petersburg, the top traditional Russian food, and other fun activities that you can try on your tour to Russia.
