Russia has always been known as a ballet powerhouse, producing some of the world’s best-known dancers. At home, they are national heroes, and abroad – fascinating wonders from another world.
Galina Ulanova, who danced with the Bolshoi Theater from 1944 until 1960, was the Soviet ballet superstar of her era. She won every award in her field and even the approval of Joseph Stalin, who had her move to Moscow from her native Leningrad. In Moscow she eventually received an apartment in the famous House on Kotelnicheskaya Naberezhnaya, one of what English speakers call the “Seven Sisters.”
Her apartment there is now a museum, and the ballet lovers of The Moscow Times Clubs, naturally, had to visit. After walking through the grand front entrance of the Stalinist architectural masterpiece, you might expect her apartment to be a cold, cavernous, multi-storied affair. In fact, it is nearly the opposite: a humble, cozy apartment filled with porcelain and old photographs.