21 march 2011

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visits the Tchaikovsky Museum in Votkinsk

Participants:

The Votkinsk museum was established in 1940 at the house where Pyotr Tchaikovsky was born and spent the first eight years of his life. Its opening was timed to coincide with the centenary of the famous Russian composer's birth.

While visiting the museum, Mr Putin found himself surrounded by pageantry staged by the museum's staff to recreate the atmosphere of the 19th-century household into which Tchaikovsky was born. The prime minister played along by chatting with the actors in French and German, languages widely spoken by the Russian aristocracy at the time.