fivemack | From the people who brought you Gagarin

The first estimate I found on Google claimed there were 50,000 Russians in London. Yesterday, most of them were in Trafalgar Square, as the Russian-British Cultural Association's Russian Winter Festival brought several famous Russian performers to a big stage there.

It was a much more Russian-oriented event than I'd expected: narrated in Russian and English (by the anchorwoman of the 0200-0600 session on Capital FM), all sung in Russian apart from the Karagod Group doing "Back in the USSR". Beautiful costumes (embroidered silk and swirling skirts), amazing acrobatic dancing, and the square pretty much packed shoulder to shoulder; people standing all around the fountains, people climbing the fountains by the end of the evening. Barmen all around baffled by Russian Federation passports though, to the annoyance of many 16-year-olds, the ages are given in numerals.

The Chechen group wore dresses that came to an inch above the floor, and glided around with small steps in a most disconcerting way. The Eskimo group were wonderfully coquettish, with music sounding like very enthusiastic heavy breathing.

The programme may be found here until it is taken down

Yr hmbl crspndt commits what was in the Soviet era the serious crime of using a drunken Red Army Choir member as a photographic prop