The Museum of Ballet

There’s still a half-hour before curtains-up, but all approaches to the mariinsky theater are blocked by traffic. And there’s no other way to get there from our city-center hotel other than by car: it’s a 15-minute walk to the metro, and, while trams do run right past the theater, they do so only irregularly.

“What’s playing?” Asks the taxi driver. The photographer and i start to explain that today is an historic occasion, because the