4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2021
⏱️ 11 minutes
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The biggest circus in Soviet Russia opened in Moscow in April 1971. Circus was considered the “people’s art form” in the USSR and was highly popular. The new Moscow State Circus building on Vernadsky Avenue could seat up to 3400 people and was filled with state of the art technology.
Alexander Egorenko was one of the backstage crew, and still works at the circus today. He tells Lucy Burns about his memories of the circus.
(Elephant Nicole celebrates her birthday at the Great Moscow State Circus, Jan 18 2021. Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Getty Images)
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. |
| 0:30.9 | Hi and |
| 0:35.0 | today we're off to the B.C World Service. |
| 0:38.0 | I'm Lucy Burns and today we're off to the circus. |
| 0:42.0 | It's a snowy winter night. Today we're off to the circus. |
| 0:43.2 | It's a snowy winter night on the hills of Lenin, but even though the temperature is well below |
| 0:48.0 | freezing, thousands of people have been flocking to this part of Moscow because this building is the home of one of the |
| 0:54.2 | world's greatest circuses, the Moscow Order of Lenin State Circus. And though it's |
| 0:59.4 | open six days a week all the year round with three performances on Sundays you wouldn't |
| 1:04.1 | stand much chance of a seat unless you booked well in advance. The Moscow State |
| 1:08.1 | Circus on Vanadsky Avenue in southwest Moscow is still the world's biggest indoor circus building today. |
| 1:15.0 | And when it opened in April 1971, it dazzled the crowds in Communist Russia. |
| 1:21.0 | Inside the dome rises 80 feet over the ring in this the so-called new circus. |
| 1:26.0 | In fact, there are two circus buildings in Moscow, the other older one could no longer cope with the popular demand. |
| 1:32.0 | And so this one, surely the most lavishly |
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