Vladimir Vasilyev Movies

Liosha (Oleg Borisov) is a veteran gardener who cares for the apple orchard like his late father before him, and he receives letters from all over the country requesting seeds from the ancient orchard. Local authorities question Liosha who willingly sends the seeds at his own expense. His years of dedication to the garden and orchard have turned him into a hermit after he loses his best friend and his wife. When a local commission makes plans to destroy his beloved orchard in favor of a chicken coop, Liosha wages a successful battle against the bureaucracy to save the land. The feature has a definite message of the importance of ecological conservation. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

This tribute to one of the world's great ballet companies features both contemporary and vintage footage of the stars of the Bolshoi Ballet interpreting the great works of the ballet repertoire. Galina Ulanova, Maya Plisetskaya, Vladimir Vasiliev, Asaf Messerer, and Mikhail Lavrosky are among the dancers captured on film in classic productions of Swan Lake, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, The Red Poppy, Sleeping Beauty, and others. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Vladimir Vasiliev and Natalya Bessmertnova headline this adaptation of Yuri Grigorovich's classic tale of revolt staged by the Bolshoi Ballet directed by Vadim Derbenev. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

This compilation performance video from Kultur features excerpts of prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya from the Bolshoi Ballet as the lead in Georges Bizet's opera Carmen. Other highlights include clips of Raymonda, Bach's Prelude, and The Dying Swan. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

The Bolshoi Ballet and Orchestra combine for a performance that illustrates the dance troupe is considered one of the best in the world. Over 40 dancers perform to music by such classical composers as Tchaikowsky, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Paganini, Prokofiev, and others. Russian folk songs and dances are also included in this feature that will delight fans of ballet the world over. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

This Russian operetta chronicles the exploits of a professor and her father who become elated when they finally have the opportunity to move from their cramped apartment to a more spacious abode. Two more couples are also slated to move into the bigger apartments, but upon their arrival at the new building, they are dismayed when the super refuses to give them their keys. The angry tenants begin investigating and discover that he is covering up for a greedy petty official who has been allowed to expand his apartment at the expense of theirs. The angry group then enlists the aid of more friends and eventually they are given their new homes. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Little Humpbacked Horse is a modern ballet filmed at the Bolshoi Theater and starring Maya Plisetskaya as the Queen Maiden and dancer Vladimir Vasilyev as Ivan. Ivan is a good-hearted soul who acquires three horses, and one of them is the humpbacked horse (danced by Anya Scher Binina). Ivan's disreputable brothers steal two of his three horses, but Fate leaves Ivan with the humpbacked animal, exactly the horse that can bring him good luck. Thanks to equine guidance, Ivan is able to stop his brothers from selling off the two stolen horses to the king, but at the same time, the king asks Ivan if he can please find the Queen Maiden -- setting him off on an adventure that allows for impressive leaps and pirouettes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Veteran Russian character actor Nikolai Cherkasov plays the noble but befuddled title character in this Soviet adaptation of Don Quixote. Yuri Tolubeyev co-stars as Sancho Panza -- and if Sancho sounds a bit like Sherlock Holmes' Dr. Watson at times, it is because his voice was dubbed for the English-language version by Howard Marion-Crawford, who portrayed Watson on the 1954 TV series Sherlock Holmes. The film follows the path laid out three centuries earlier by Miguel de Cervantes, stopping short of Cervantes' original ending, which intimated that Quixote would never die (this was not in keeping with Communist ideology of the period). In this version, Quixote jousts with imaginary giants and mistakes milkmaids for aristocrats against the backdrop of the Crimea, standing in for the hills of Spain. Filmed in 1957, Don Quixote was not released in the U.S. until 1961 due to the heating up of the Cold War. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi