19 December 2005 – The Philippine Embassy in Moscow reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs that as part of the pre-launch event for the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of 30th anniversary of the establishment of Philippine-Russian relations next year, Ballet Manila, one of the Philippines' foremost classical dance companies schooled in Russian techniques, made a well-applauded debut on 11 and 13 December 2005  in Yekaterinburg, an industrial city best known as the site of the martyrdom of Tsar Nicholas II and his family during the Russian Revolution.

The 26-member troupe, led by Ballet Master Osias Barroso, delighted Russian audiences at the 1200-seat Dvorets Molodezhi (Youth Palace) concert hall at the 1905 Square in the center of the Yekaterinburg, the third stop in a 16-day, seven-city tour of Russia's highly industrialized Ural Region, which traditionally forms the divide between Europe and Asia.

The highlight, Barroso said, was the sustained applause given by the audience for a purely Filipino program last Sunday that included OPM (Original Pilipino Music) hits - well-loved favorites by Filipino-American audiences in past tours in the United States but all but unknown in Russia.

"We were quite surprised with the reaction of the audiences here," Barroso said. "They laughed, expressed surprise and clapped at the right moments. You'd think we were performing for a Filipino crowd," he added. A number of spectators even requested to buy CDs of the program soundtrack.

It was the first time Ballet Manila ever performed the Filipino program for a completely non-Filipino audience, the cast members said. Normally, the group would reserve the Filipino program for Filipino communities overseas. This time, the concert organizers from ail the seven cities made special requests for the inclusion of distinctly indigenous elements.

The other surprise of the two-day run in Russia's fifth biggest city was how well the Russian audience, basically reared on a stead cultural diet of ballet classics since youth, reacted to the Philippine troupe's classical program, Carmen Suite. Ballet Manila presented an original choreography by the late Founder and Artistic Adviser Eric Cruz.

In between performances, the group took a tour of the city, in particular the Cathedral of All-Saints on the Blood, which was erected in July 2003 to mark the massacre of the Romanov family on the same site during the bloody Russian civil war that, followed the October 1917 Revolution. That site, called the Ipatiev House, was torn down in 1977 on the order of First Party Secretary Boris Yeltsin.

Yekaterinburg, founded in 1723 and named after St Catherine and Peter the Great's wife, Ekaterina, is widely known as the city where Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their children Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Tsarevich Alexei were executed by Bolsheviks in July 1918. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized them as saints in 2000.

On 16 December,  Ballet Manila, led by prima ballerina Lisa Macuja, a former regular performer for Russia's famous Kirov Ballet, completed its three performances in Perm, which boasts of one of the country's best opera and ballet theatres. Prior to Yekaterinburg, the group opened its 2005 tour in Magnitogorsk and Chelyabinsk, booming mining and engineering cities in Chelyabinsk Region.

Ballet Manila's third tour of Russia will run until 21 with performances in Kirov, Izhevsk and Tyumen. END