Aerial gymnast from the Circus on Vernadsky received the title of “Princess of the Circus”

The winners of the VIII International Festival of Circus Art “Princess of the Circus” have become known.

This year the competition received 120 applications, and it was not an easy task to choose only 20 of them.

“The expert council worked with disputes and even conflicts, but, in the end, came to a consensus,” said Sergey Belyakov, general director of the Russian State Circus Company.

And the experts were not mistaken with the choice: the audience gave almost every number a standing ovation. Indeed, some performances made hearts skip a beat – not only from admiration, but also from experiences. One of them was the performance of Tatyana Belikova, an aerial gymnast on belts from the Great Moscow State Circus on Vernadsky Avenue, who, under the dome of the circus, without insurance, performed tricks of incredible complexity and beauty.

Her performance eventually conquered the jury – Tatyana Belikova received the Grand Prix of the festival and the title “Princess of the Circus”.

Alisa Nesterova, a white tiger trainer from the Russian State Circus, also impressed the jury members. The style of training of this young fragile girl is not quite usual, but gives excellent results.

She has four tigresses and two tigers under her command. Plush and affectionate at first glance, in fact they are no less dangerous than any other tigers. Nevertheless, it seems that the animals understand Alice perfectly – so clearly they carry out all her commands.

“I don’t force them to work, I negotiate with them,” said the trainer. “Because the tiger should go not from a person, but to a person, and certainly not through aggression.”

As a result, Alisa Nesterova, like Vietnamese gymnasts Pham Thi Huon and Chu Hong Tuy, was awarded the golden crown of the festival.

A total of nine participants from Russia, France, Vietnam and Kazakhstan received gold, silver and bronze awards. Among them are aerial gymnasts from France Charlotte Joget and Helen Kolesnikoff. By the way, Helen has Russian roots. Her grandmother was from Russia, and she taught her granddaughter to speak her native language. But the girl managed to visit our country for the first time and, according to her, it became a source of additional vivid emotions for her.

The festival was also unforgettable for clowness Oksana Neskladnaya (Zubkova) from the circus on Vernadsky – after her performance, a young man came out to the arena of the circus and, in front of a full hall, kneeling down, made Oksana a marriage proposal. The empathetic girl, under the approval of the audience, answered “yes”.

… Next year the Russian circus will celebrate its 150th anniversary. And the key event of the celebration of this anniversary date will be the XIX international festival “Princess of the Circus”, which will also be held in the legendary circus of the Nikitin brothers.

Alena Bodrienko.

Photo by Elena Blednykh