It was a bit early when we left on our trip – 3.15 in the morning! Even the birds weren’t up yet. As we travelled across Snake Pass to Manchester Airport it started to snow. If this was England we wondered what it would be like in Russia.
None of us knew quite what to expect in Taganrog. Everyone had ‘googled’ it, so we knew all about Chekhov, and Peter the Great. Our first chance to have a proper look was on Saturday morning, when we had a walk around the town and visited a couple of the museums dedicated to Chekhov.
There wasn’t a lot of time to relax though, as by 4.00pm it was straight into the first concert at the Tchaikovsky Museum. The piano was one that Tchaikovsky himself used! It’s probably best not to mention who it was that bumped into it with their instrument. Fortunately it didn’t seem to affect the tuning of the piano, though.
Sunday was spent sightseeing and visiting some of the main museums, and by Monday we were ready for the rest of the concerts.
There were seven concerts in total, from the quite formal, at the Taganrog Art Gallery, in front of local press and television, to the informal such as the concert for student teachers of English, who then performed for us in return and joined us on a massed walk down by the sea.
By the end of the week, the William Appleby students were old hands at playing in front of TV cameras, video cameras, press cameras etc. The standard of playing certainly improved over the week, with such intensive performance practice.
Often the concerts were shared with local music students, and we were treated to performances of traditional music, song and dance on traditional instruments, which was wonderful to see and hear. We were welcomed warmly wherever we played. A couple of times we arrived at a venue to be met by students in national costume carrying an offering of bread and salt, a Russian custom to greet guests. We tried to think how we might give visitors in our own country a traditional greeting but struggled to come up with any ideas.
