Day 35: Wednesday 16th September
A beautiful morning for visiting Sevastopol – bright, sunny, Greek-style weather, and very warm. On the way we stop at a stall near the diorama to buy a map of Sevastopol – which should have prevented our getting our orientation in the city all wrong but it didn’t. However, through our mistakes we do see all we want to see, including South Bay where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is still stationed – though they’re not welcome and the lease runs out in 2017 (though the elections six months later returned the pro-Russian candidate who promptly agreed a 40 year extension to the lease). No big ships there, though – they must be out on manoeuvre.
Sevastopol is a lovely, clean city, very spacious and pleasant to wander around, especially on a hot summer day. But the pack of a dozen stray dogs cruising around the gardens is a bit unnerving. Close to Artillery Bay we come across one of several theatres, this one offering a performance tonight of – what? It’s certainly a Tchaikovsky ballet but Harry’s recollection of the many Russian words he learned doesn’t run to a translation. The tickets cost the equivalent of £2.30 each, and whatever it is will be performed by the ‘Moscow Ballet’.
Back to our camping place in the woodland for a spot of clothes washing to keep Harry going, and a snack, before setting off again for the city and an unaccustomed bit of culture. En route we stop at a petrol station with car wash to fill up with water and tip the equivalent of £1.40.
The ballet production – it turns out to be Sleeping Beauty – was promoted by the Sevastopol Russian Dramatic Academy, according to the tickets. What an unusual experience! First the theatre itself, with its classic style, chandeliers, red seats, and gold-and silver-embroidered curtains – all of which have been well used and now look decidedly shabby. There is an orchestra pit but it’s clearly unoccupied – the performance is to be accompanied by piped music, a tape which could be stopped and started to allow for applause – of which there are four or five bursts before the curtain goes up, presumably to welcome local dignitaries arriving to join the audience. It is all very Russian (not Ukrainian) and very provincial! After the event we realised that it was very much the preserve of the local ballet school – lots of young children in the audience, no doubt the budding ballerinas of the future, with ballet mummies and grandmas, as well as many of the local Russian-Ukrainian community supporting the Moscow troupe. One particularly dour babushka plonked her bag on the empty seat beside us and scowled throughout the evening.
It is by no means a perfect performance – perhaps the B team playing, or even the C – but there are one or two future stars among the tights and tutus. The young man with star-dusted hair playing the part of the Prince is remarkably ill-favoured in appearance but he certainly can dance. Favourites among the audience are the female lead, Princess Aurora, very young and perhaps dancing her first leading role, but more especially three dancers with cameo parts every now and then who get more than their fair share of ovation at the end of each solo bit. They must have been graduates of the Sevastopol Academy coming back to local acclaim, each presented at the end with a bunch of flowers by small children in the audience (including one little girl who classically wiped Princess Aurora’s kiss off her cheek as she left the stage!).
All in all it was an interesting experience of a bit of local cultural life, and it’s good to take in a ballet every few decades or so ... Wonder what Sleeping Beauty is like, though, when it’s not punctuated by quite so many rounds of applause.
Then on to the nearby café where we’d had lunch to charge up the laptop and get on line. (There is handy free parking close to the sights in Sevastopol.) A spot of supper too (blini – pancakes – with jam and soured cream, very nice) but the laptop freezes twice, probably through somebody usurping the bandwidth, so Harry gives up and just gets 45 minutes’ charge. It’s midnight before we are back in the woods and tucked up in bed.
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