Like A Bear on A Wire
Whoever goes out for a spin in Moscow with a bear in the back seat doesn’t get into trouble with the police for the simple reason that no officer is interested in starting trouble with a predator. Outside of the circus ring as well, life is quite a bit more intense for many Russian artistes than it is for their fellow countrymen. To kick off a circus career, an aspiring animal tamer might resort to getting a half-grown tiger on the black market and travelling to appearances by rail with it in the sleeping car.
Since the Soviets made the circus into a matter of national interest, Russian performers have dominated the international circus scene thanks to their outstanding technique. In recent years they have been forced to learn a trick for which they never had any training: surviving in the free market. With the decline of the Red star, the Russian circus was also consigned to a state of fading luminosity. The State Circus, once a prestigious cultural ambassador of the Soviet Union that brought in significant amounts of foreign currency, was hardly able to feed its animals during the economic crisis. Many of the artistes left Russia under adventurous circumstances to work in the West, often at dumping prices.
With the advent of the Commonwealth of Independent States, swindlers started using the names of famous circuses to lure audiences into third-rate shows. The Russian public, accustomed to the highest standards, disappointedly left the tents in droves, and thus in many places the circuses’ reputations have been ruined to this day.
Nowadays a new generation of circus directors has succeeded in turning this trend around. Private circuses, which were forbidden under the Soviets, have used trickery and idealism in establishing a place for themselves in today’s Russia, chaotic as it remains. Moscow’s famous circus school got out of the red by offering courses for foreign private students. The great Russian circuses are searching for ways of catching up with artistic developments in the West and are bringing the performing elite back home. Mstislav Zapashnyi, the new director of the state circus Rosgozirc, would like to transform the overweight apparatus into a profit-making enterprise – and introduce computers into the operation as a first step.
The bear has emerged from hibernation.
