Press releases

ST PETERSBURG, 6 December (BelTA) – Following the CIS informal summit Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko together with other leaders of the CIS countries attended The Nutcracker ballet at the Mariinsky Theater, BelTA has learned.

At the show, Alexander Lukashenko took his seat next to the presidents of Russia and Kyrgyzstan, Vladimir Putin and Sooronbay Jeenbekov. Before the start of the ballet, the Belarusian head of state and the Russian leader were noticed discussing something. As BelTA reported earlier, the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting took place in St Petersburg in the first half of the day.

According to the Mariinsky Theater website, The Nutcracker ballet has been gathering capacity crowds in St Petersburg for the past 125 years. It was first staged at the St Petersburg Mariinsky Theater in the winter of 1892 to occupy a dominant place among the late musical works of Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The literary basis of the ballet is The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, a fairy tale by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann. “Love, friendship, kindness, beauty, both external and internal - all these feelings are present in the play. All this is the Nutcracker ballet. We all need this so much today. Incomparably beautiful music, a vivid spectacle and lively dance go in unconditional harmony,” the Mariinsky Theater website runs.