Grand Olympic Auditorium

A meeting with the Bolshoi Ballet
I have the greatest number who have read my articles may collect'm a huge fan of opera but in all honesty, I can not pretend to be a devotee of equal ballet, but this should not be interpreted as I do not take joy. Maybe it's because my tastes lean more to the passion of the singers and the drama in opera rather than the grace of a ballet dancer. Whatever the reason, I must ask a fan biggest fan of opera and ballet, but in all truth I'm a lover of dance, but I did not become one until I Santiago in Chile have met members of the Bolshoi Ballet. It was a moment I will never forget because it showed me all the grace of ballet, however, before this encounter with the Bolshoi I saw them perform in Moscow and perhaps that is where I was introduced to dance. My decision to visit the Soviet Union came during the fall of 1988. This was the period of perestroika and glasnost, Mikhail Gorbachev, the new leader of the Soviet Union had acquired a taste for many Americans as they could see some honesty in him. For my part, can not claim that my desire to visit the Soviet Union have been influenced in any way by Gorbachev that the real reason of my trip was based on my desire to travel the world in search of all towns and the places I had read about my extensive readings of history. Of course, this was also a moment in my life when I was entertaining dreams of becoming a professional photographer and he had in mind to take pictures of Leningrad (former name: Petrograd, now St. Petersburg) and Moscow. These cities seemed ideal for this purpose, both with architecture that was so different from New York and the sense of history would be enormous. After all they are two cities that were near the center of the Second World War and the Russian revolutions of 1917. The first that ousted Nicolas II and the second in October (although the Russian Orthodox calendar marks today as having been in November) put the Bolsheviks in power. I even wanted to visit the Soviet Union before, but the issue was not so simple that I would have liked. First of all, because the Soviet Union was a closed society, I needed a visa, not that it was an inconvenience that I had already visited many other Communist countries like Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, DDR and Yugoslavia. These countries also require, as I have an American visa. I can even say how it was a time in 1987 in which I as an American was needed to get a visa to enter France for instead of being given an automatic entry as was the case with most European countries. The Soviet Union however was different even from other communist countries that forced me to go to their embassy or consulate, naturally with my passport, two photographs and money to pay for the visa. The Soviet Union is not necessary for me to have already been mentioned, but a prepaid hotel where I would remain, which essentially means that I either book a hotel in the cities I wanted to go to New York before you leave or go to what is commonly called a "tour". I have not so much by my own choice took the second option to go on tour, although in truth, I would have preferred to go alone. With the intension of spending Christmas and New Year's Day in the Soviet Union at the beginning that I booked in November for a tour that includes Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev, in that order. While visiting those cities of the Soviet Union I have seen many things, some of which were very strange, at least in my opinion, a communist country (I had already visited more), for example, Soviet Union, there were stores only limits accepted hard currency (meaning a currency that could be converted outside its country of origin) and were en route to Soviet citizens. Yes, P.