The first time I went to Moscow, I was there as a tourist

At the very top of my list was the Bolshoi Ballet

Founded in 1776, it’s one of the oldest and most prestigious ballet companies in the world, performing in the iconic Bolshoi Theatre

If you’re even vaguely interested in culture, it’s one of those you have to see it once in your life experiences

But there was a problem

As Russia opened up to the West, the Bolshoi started filling up with Western tourists who could afford the tickets

The unintended consequence? Local Russians were being priced out of their own cultural institution

So the authorities stepped in and changed the rules

To buy a ticket, you had to have been living in Moscow for at least 30 days

Fair enough

What you learn very quickly in Moscow, though, is that rules are often… flexible

We asked our tour guide, quite innocently,
“So… how do we get tickets?”

She paused and said,
“Let me make a phone call.”

That was it. The deal was done

The plan was straight out of central casting

We were to meet a man, wearing a brown coat, under a bridge, on a specific day, at a specific time

We would give him cash

He would give us two tickets

The tour guide would be nowhere to be seen

She also reminded us, just in case we were feeling brave, that this was illegal

If the police caught us, there would be a hefty fine… or perhaps a hefty bribe

The details were a little vague

One more warning: no funny business

No haggling

No asking for a better deal

Demand massively outweighed supply, and if we caused any trouble, the man would simply walk away

So we turned up at the appointed time

Handed over the cash

Received two tickets

To be fair, he seemed like a perfectly nice bloke

Like many people in Moscow, he’d simply found a way to make some money in a system full of constraints

That helped calm my nerves, especially later, when we arrived at the Bolshoi Theatre itself and were greeted by men with machine guns guarding the entrance

At that moment, I did wonder if the tickets might be fake

They weren’t

We took our seats and watched Giselle, surrounded by the sheer spectacle and beauty that makes the Bolshoi legendary

It was an incredible night and absolutely worth the effort

Conclusion

It all felt a bit James Bond, dabbling briefly in the Moscow underworld, then emerging into velvet seats and world-class ballet

And maybe that’s the lesson

Wherever there are rigid rules, scarcity, and high demand, unofficial systems will appear

Not always elegant. Not always legal. But very, very human

Sometimes, the path to a magical experience involves a bridge, a brown coat, and a quiet understanding that the world doesn’t always work the way it says it does