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Hanging Out with the Russians

by Todd Strong

Viktor and Anatoly, the exciting acrobatic/juggling team from the Moscow Circus were special guests of the Twelfth Annual European Juggling Festival held in Maastricht, Holland, this summer. While at the festival, they gave workshops, held some impromptu demonstrations on the floor, and performed in the public show.

Arrangements had been made to have them join us after the festival at the Centre National des Arts du Cirque, the French National Circus School in Chalons-sur-Marne. I was chosen to pick them up for the festival at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. I waved a juggling club to be recognized and they found me. They carried remarkably little luggage, just a small shoulder bag each and a shared shopping bag that held twelve silver clubs. We shook hands and headed to the car.

They were open, outgoing men who were easy to talk with. On the drive back they were curious to know what their schedules would be, how many people would be at the festival, what last year's convention was like (they had been invited but at the last minute could not attend), and how many clubs Anthony Gatto could juggle.

Over the traffic noise we found out about each other. Both Viktor and Anatoly are married (not to each other) and each has one child. They met as students at the circus school in Kiev. After four years of circus training they joined the army and appeared in military song and dance production numbers that sound very similar to American USO shows. They have been out of school and performing for nine years.

Friday afternoon they began practicing on the juggling floor and soon had more than 1,000 jugglers watching appreciatively. After the workout they were quite happy to talk with the other jugglers and even passed their personally handmade clubs around for people to inspect and admire.

Someone handed me one of their clubs and I figured I'd better return it. Entering their room I was offered a glass of vodka. I postponed the toast and found they were heading into town. Asking if they had had a chance to change money, I found out that when Russians leave the country they are issued $15.00 in American currency. I swapped them a 50-guilder note for an autographed Russian one ruble bill. A poor rate of exchange on the monetary level, but wonderful for human relations. (This autographed ruble is to be auctioned off at the UCLA convention next summer, by the way!)