XXVI Festival of Russian Theaters “Meetings in Russia” Finished in St. Petersburg

The XXVI Festival of Russian Theaters “Meetings in Russia” ended on 9 April in St. Petersburg. It was dedicated to the 225th anniversary of Alexander Pushkin's birth. The program included performances based on the works of the great Russian poet.

Groups from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan took part in the festival. 

The “Meetings in Russia” were held with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Committee on Culture of St. Petersburg, the Union of Theatre Workers of the Russian Federation and with the assistance of the IPA CIS.

The final performance of the festival was the “Little Tragedies” by the Yerevan State Russian Drama Theater named after Stanislavsky. The action is based on the game of life opposites, which Alexander Pushkin masterfully combined. It also presents his iconic dramatic works: ”A Scene from Faust”, ”The Stingy Knight”, ”Mozart and Salieri”, ”The Stone Guest” and ”Feast during the Plague”.

The guests of the performance were deputy Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council – Plenipotentiary Representative of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia Hayk Chilingaryan and Advisor to the Model Law-Making Support Department, Secretary of the IPA CIS Permanent Commission on Culture, Information, Tourism and Sport Igor Minin. They thanked the organizers for the successful holding of the festival and presented memorable gifts to the representatives of the theater.

The Festival “Meetings in Russia” is a large–scale theatrical forum bringing together Russian-speaking theaters both from the CIS countries and from other states. This year it was held for the 26th time on 3-9 April.

In the year of Alexander Pushkin's 225th birthday, the festival showed that the legacy of the classic will always be relevant, and the Russian-language theater has no borders, is diverse in modern world art and remains a genuine institution of Russian culture.

Young directors, actors, artists, and playwrights working in Russian-speaking creative teams present their own modern vision of art, while preserving the traditions of Russian Repertory Theater. For all the time, 77 theaters from near and far abroad took part in festival, 275 performances were played. In 2017, the Association of Russian Theaters Abroad was established, which today unites more than 145 theater figures from 40 countries.