Magic is born here: life of the Great Moscow State Circus on Vernadsky Prospekt

Discover Moscow invites you to the Great Moscow Circus and its Director Edgar Zapashny. You will learn how you make friends with elephants, why the circus construction was classified and how real magic is born.

One of the largest European circuses is shaped as a giant dome. It was designed by architects Yefim Vulykh and Yakov Belopolsky. The first shows came to the ring in 1971. The Great Moscow Circus is one of a kind: its seat capacity is over 3,000 people; it welcomes about 800,000 spectators annually.

Edgar Zapashny, People’s Artist of Russia and the Circus Directors, knows more than anyone about the circus performances, the troupe life and about his quadrupedal charges. He says the circus offers a new show every season. When he and his brother just joined the troupe, they had classic performances only.

“We decided we had to make it into a show: each of our performances was designed to have an idea and a certain message. At the same time, we’re not afraid to experiment or to veer off-course. For example, during the World Cup in Moscow, we ran a soccer-themed show,” added Edgar Zapashny.

The true magic is also a work of those you don’t see on stage. One of them is Nadezhda Russ, a costume designer who always tries to convey the show producer’s idea to the audience.

“I have to account for the genre specifics and adjust the look to the genre the performer’s chosen. It’s quite a challenge. A costume should be comfortable to wear, without any strappings or bulky elements; sometimes you have to come up with a sophisticated look while being quite minimalistic. Recently, we have updated the Zapashny brothers’ looks for the Awesome Power show. I think the Alpha and Omega looks (those are the characters’ names) are among my favorites. They are ethnic hodgepodges with high-tech elements thrown in,” she told us.

In the Great Moscow Circus, they love animals, take good care of them and treat them like full-fledged members of their big family. Anastasia Dementieva-Kornilova, a fourth-generation elephant tamer and a trapeze performer, tells us that those huge animals, just like child actors, select their props for themselves. Right now, there are two female elephants living and performing in the Great Moscow Circus: Pretty and Margot.

Read about a troupe member’s day, about whether you can combine animal taming with trapeze shows and about how many shows in total have been performed throughout the circus history, in the material published on the portal.