World Ballet Day is marked on October 5 in 2017. It is an annual celebration of ballet held since 2014 in the first week of October. TASS remebers some of the greatest Russian ballerinas of all times.
Russia's greatest ballerinas of all times
To celebrate World Ballet Day on October 5, TASS remebers some of the greatest Russian ballerinas
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Avdotia Istomina (1799-1848) was the most celebrated Imperial Russian ballerina of the 19th century. She was considered one of the first dancers to master the pointe technique
© Public domain Matilda Kshesinskaya (1872-1971) was a Russian ballerina from a family of Polish origin. She was a mistress of the future Tsar Nicholas II of Russia prior to his marriage, and later the wife of his cousin Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia
© Public domain In 1896, Matilda Kshesinskaya obtained the rank of Prima ballerina of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres
© TASS Anna Pavlovna (1881-1931) was a Russian prima ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. She was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev
© Public domain Pavlova is most recognized for the creation of the role The Dying Swan. She became the first ballerina to tour ballet around the world
© TASS Agrippina Vaganova (1879-1951) was a Russian ballet teacher who developed the Vaganova method – the technique which derived from the teaching methods of the old Imperial Ballet School under Marius Petipa throughout the mid to late 19th century
© Public domain Olga Spessivtseva (1895-1991) was a Russian ballerina whose stage career spanned from 1913 to 1939
© Public domain Galina Ulanova (1909-1998) is frequently cited as being one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century. Photo: Bolshoi Theatre prima ballerina Galina Ulanova as Odette performs in Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake
© A. Vorotynsky/TASS Ekaterina Maximova (1939-2009] was a Soviet and Russian ballerina of international renown. Photo: Bolshoi Theatre ballet dancers Yekaterina Maksimova and Valery Vasiliev performing in "Chopiniana"
© Alexander Konkov/TASS Maya Plisetskaya (1925-2015) was the Soviet ballet’s most famous star of the past half-century. Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev considered her "not only the best ballerina in the Soviet Union, but the best in the world". Photo: Maya Plisetskaya, 1980
© Alexander Konkov/TASS