Sad “bears” and golden Yagudin: how the “Russian Challenge” went in St. Petersburg

For Russian athletes, this season’s tournament was the second in history. And if last year the regulations were somewhat crumpled, then this year the organizers approached the event with full responsibility. Current or retired skaters could gain access to the competition, and the qualifying stage became an important criterion for participation.

For the 2023/24 season, the tournament organizers chose Russian culture as the main theme. All participants had to prepare a previously unpresented performance reflecting the cultural or historical characteristics of Russia.

Passions began to boil even at the stage of selecting athletes. On the eve of the tournament, St. Petersburg figure skater Stanislava Konstantinova upset her fans on the social network by announcing that she would not take part in the “Russian Challenge”. The organizers called her performance inappropriate for the theme and “empty,” and her skating low-speed. Stasya came out to her subscribers in a tearful state: she had been preparing the program for a long time and planned to perform in public for the first time in two years. Fans reassured their favorite and gave her gifts as a consolation prize.

Booed Bezrukov

And on March 9, the Yubileiny Sports Palace turned from a competitive skating rink into a film set. It was as if viewers were on a show like television’s Ice Age.

The competition jury included choreographer Yegor Druzhinin, ballet dancer Kimin Kim, actress Victoria Isakova, opera singer Aida Garifullina, choreographer Boris Eifman, actor Sergei Bezrukov and choreographer Alla Sigalova.

Interestingly, the tournament organizers did not involve a single professional figure skater on the judging panel. It should be noted that this is a rather strange decision: people not from figure skating are unfamiliar with the athletes’ careers and, as a result, cannot always fully understand the idea of ​​the number. Let’s just remember the controversial situation with the evaluation of Matvey Vetlugin’s program last year. Then the “non-figure” judges simply did not understand the ideas of the athlete and his team, and the idea, which was called brilliant in a narrow circle of figure skaters, only ended up at the bottom of the standings.

This time there were no scandals either. For example, actress Isakova “lacked charisma” in the performance of Mikhail Kolyada and his wife Daria. If anyone is not in the know, let us remind you that the best works of the artist, according to users of online cinemas, are roles in the series “Tenderness”, “Doctor Zhivago” (2005), “Thaw”, “Epidemic”, “The Brothers Karamazov” and so on.

And Sergei Bezrukov criticized Andrei Mozalev, who transformed into the image of the “Black Man” from the poem of the same name by Sergei Yesenin, for… a black shirt. By the way, the poems to which the skater skated his program were voiced by Bezrukov.

But then it was the artist himself who got it. Having watched Dmitry Aliyev’s program to Vladimir Vysotsky’s song “My Gypsy,” Bezrukov did not appreciate the backflip or other elements performed by the skater. The actor, who in the movie played not only the bandit Sasha Bely and the poet Sergei Yesenin, but also the singer Vladimir Vysotsky, called the skater a “great master,” but criticized the act. He stated that Aliyev was portraying an “alcoholic” and the program should have been more dramatic. After this, the audience booed the actor, at one point drowning out his speech.

Of course, a jury member has the right to his own opinion. But it seemed that sometimes they evaluated everything except the skaters’ skating itself. On the other hand, if Tatyana Tarasova had been sitting in Alla Sigalova’s chair, and Ilya Averbukh had been handing out assessments instead of Yegor Druzhinin, the tournament could have turned from a gala evening into a debriefing. But what’s wrong with that?

From Mymra to Sharikov

At the Russian Challenge, Elizaveta Pasechnik and Dario Chirisano were the first to take to the ice. The dancers performed a fiery program to the hit “King of Orange Summer” by the group “Bravo”. Afterwards, Makar Ignatov appeared before the judges and spectators in the image of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. He managed not only to make an acrobatic cartwheel, but also to burn the second volume of Dead Souls right on the ice.

Elizaveta Shanaeva and Pavel Drozd took the film “Office Romance” as an idea for the program: Alexander Zhulin’s students told the love story of Mymra and Novoseltsev on ice.

The theme of Russian culture was continued by Roman Savosin, who played the main character in Mikhail Bulgakov’s story “The Heart of a Dog.”

The audience shed their first tears of the evening during Ksenia Sinitsina’s performance. As an idea for the number, the athlete took the story of Tanya Savicheva, a girl who kept a diary during the siege of Leningrad. Ksyusha herself said that she dedicated the program to all children under the siege, and she was not able to ride without tears in her eyes the first time.

“Unique, inimitable. She alone has this individuality. She feels and knows every sound of any piece,” – Tarasova said after Ksenia’s speech.

Evgeny Semenenko also addressed the theme of the Great Patriotic War, performing a program to the song “Cranes” by Mark Bernes.

Ice suffering

If the first part pleased the viewer with a variety of ideas, then in the second continuous “suffering” began… Everyone skated to lyrical compositions: Alexandra Stepanova – Ivan Bukin, Evgenia Medvedeva, Victoria Sinitsina – Nikita Katsalapov, Evgenia Tarasova – Vladimir Morozov, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Oksana Domnina – Maxim Shabalin and Maria Petrova – Alexey Tikhonov.

Thus, the silver medalist of the Pyeongchang Olympics, Evgenia Medvedeva, skated to the vocals of jury member Aida Garifullina. But this did not bring her victory. Sinitsina and Katsalapov chose for the program the song “The Ferryman,” famously performed by a singer who left Russia. Petrova and Tikhonov “retold” the cartoon “Hedgehog in the Fog” to the music of Chopin, and Domnina and Shabalin chose Pelageya’s song “Paths” for their act. The program of Tarasova and Morozov was set to music glorifying the Belousov-Protopopov couple.

At some point, the author of these lines even wanted to leave the podium: the skaters’ programs created a truly depressive atmosphere in the auditorium. As a result, the programs merged together and were no longer perceived as separate productions.

“Does everyone really associate the theme of Russia with suffering?” – I thought…

But then Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov took to the ice. “Bears” lit up the images of Ellochka the cannibal and Ostap Bender from “12 Chairs.” The program for Tamara Moskvina’s students became a breath of fresh air that dispelled the melancholy. But Nastya’s joy with Sasha was short-lived. During the announcement of the scores, Gallyamov stood gloomier than a thundercloud: a prize from the media was clearly not what the skaters were counting on.

“Old men” are respected everywhere

The tournament was completed by Olympic champion Alexey Yagudin. As everyone knows, Lesha can do anything. And he proved it at the Russian Challenge. The skater skated and at the same time read Robert Rozhdestvensky’s poem “Moments.” We all know the song for this work as the title soundtrack for the Soviet TV series “Seventeen Moments of Spring.”

Oddly enough, the real show began after the athletes performed – during the grading. The judges gave the majority of votes, as last year, to Yagudin. Either for his length of service Alexey received first place and 5 million rubles in prize money, or the jury did not know anyone except Yagudin… On the sidelines, dissatisfied people whispered: they say, the first line could have been given to young blood. Moreover, Yagudin’s performance was not the best.

Elizaveta Tuktamysheva took second place.

Third place was shared by the pairs Domnina – Shabalin, Petrova – Tikhonov and singles skater Ksenia Sinitsyna. If no one had any questions for Ksyusha, then what is bronze doing in the hands of Oksana and Maxim and Maria and Alexey? Apparently, the judges appreciated not so much their performance as their past achievements.

As a result, “Russian Challenge” showed that the show’s organizers should seriously reconsider the rating system. And also put a couple of skaters on the jury. Maybe then the judges will stop praising the “old men” they know well and scolding the “young people”? Otherwise, the show program tournament risks turning into another “Ice Age.” No sports, only show business.