🏛 Bolshoi Theatre

The country's main opera and ballet theatre, with an eight-column portico and Apollo's quadriga above the entrance.

The theatre's founding day is considered to be 28 March 1776, when Prince Pyotr Urusov received from Catherine II the right to maintain theatrical performances.
The current building, designed by Osip Bove, opened on 18 January 1825 with the prologue The Triumph of the Muses.
After the fire of 1853 only the walls and colonnade survived; Albert Cavos rebuilt the theatre in three years, and it reopened on 20 August 1856.
The bronze quadriga of Apollo by Pyotr Klodt replaced the earlier alabaster sculpture after the fire of 1853.
The famous golden brocade curtain, designed by Fyodor Fyodorovsky, appeared in 1955.
The Historic Stage was reconstructed from 2005 to 2011 and reopened on 28 October 2011.
From October 1941 to July 1943 the theatre worked in evacuation in Kuibyshev.

Part of these routes