Day 15: Feel Yourself Russian!

“Feel Yourself Russian” is a show catered to tourists which showcases a wide variety of traditional Russian dances, songs, and music.  I first saw it last year on my first visit to St. Petersburg and knew this was a must-see for any visit to the city.

I first found out about this when I was trying to book ballet tickets last year on www.operaandballet.com – which is the website I used to reserve all the tickets for the ballets on both Russia trips.  The show starts off with a Russian quartet (“Peters’ Quartet”), followed by a band and dance ensemble comprised of three groups (“Petersburg Stars” “Maidan” and the folk band “The Souvenir”).  There is an intermission during the two-hour show, in which you can enjoy some complimentary champagne and caviar while they try to sell you videos of the performance, music from the quartet, and other souvenirs. 

Peter’s Quartet.  You can tell who the tenor is by his vivid “tenor eyebrows.”	You have no idea how hard it is to dance like that until you’ve actually tried.

It’s a great performance that really gives you an appreciation for how active and physically demanding some of this dancing is!  Even though the songs are in Russian, they act out the folk songs they’re singing about making it easy for anyone to understand what the songs are about.  I highly recommend this show for anyone visiting the city.

“Cheers, mate!” (Despite the amount which Russians drink, there isn’t a universal Russian drinking cheer or saying, so out of respect for multiculturalism I’ll side with the Brits)	If you can’t read English, you’d think the naked statues would clue you in as to which bathroom belongs to whom.  As I was leaving, there was at least one foreign tourist who didn’t pick up on the hint.