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Russian Stars on Ice in Tel Aviv, March 31st 2007

Review by TAHbKA

The show began surprisingly on time, perhaps they knew that the traffic was terrible (it rained. Rain is a national disaster traffic wise, since the municipality hopes the drain will clean itself by miracle, which it doesnt) and people would be late.

1. Klimkin to Russian Klukva. 3T, 3T, 2A were his jumps (were he a lady at euros, where would he be placed?), some pyrotechnical effects on his spins to cover the (lack of) quality.

2. Sokolova Mambo. No elements at all. 2A, 1A, 2A. Very slow, it's funny how she was following the exact pattern all the time - in a small rink even while being that slow (remind me, who had that skating turtle?? Think Sokolova might be able to compete!) it was all unclockwise all the way. Some "sexy" moves. I had a hard time to believe it was the same woman actually doing some elements just a week ago.

3. Tishler/Mitnik - ukranian acrobats. Quite cool, though fail to see how is it related to figure skating.

4. Petrova/Tihonov w Butman on saxophone. They were skating around. No elements at all and soooo slow. The rink is much smaller than olympic size, which might be the reason for their slowness in the competition.

5. Petrova/Butman - Butman is a guy from stars on ice. Think will just mention who was skating stars-wise, but not much more - had that annoying feeling while they were skating of "why should I waste my time on this fat old guy, I skate better than he does".

6. Leonova/Kvalko to Circle de Soleil. It was quite cool to see those lifts and all. She shouldn't be skating in white. Probably they are one of those couples who look better on the TV than in real life, though again, they were cool and am glad to have seen them.

7. Navka/Zhulin "For the first time together on the ice , only for you!...". Right, about a time Zhulin skated with his wife? Anyway, the feeling was "Either bring Usova or Kostomarov, but stop that". The programme was an obvious improvisation, quite badly skated. Navka was busy catching her dress which was trying to pull a Silvia Nowak and Zhulin is too short for her. The 2 lifts they did made NavKos's lifts look a joke

8. Bolshova/Tihonov - she is an actress

9. Chait/Sakhnovski - Gypsy kings. Sakh went totally blonde, it looks terrible. Chait looks great, as usual (ok, didn't see them close, but from the balcony of the rink she looked great). The programme is fun as always and it was great to see them (Mieze, eat your heart!!!)))))

10. Guseva/Kostomarov - she is an actress

11. Totmianina/Marinin - ooooo, I can gush all the day about their lines and synchro! Sooo smooth! She's quite a hero to land a throw3Lo on that tiny rink! For me they were the highlight of the show. Did some (c) lifts, which was also nice. Even the way they do the basic steps is gorgeous!

12. Navka/Basharov - think he is an actor

13. Yagudin - Winter. 3T, 3T. Wrong costume! Yeah, it was a completly different level of skating. Well done for fitting the whole step sequence (aka mustdie) to the smaller rink size.

Break

14. Domnina/Shabalin - part "Cry of Yaroslavna". Erm. Ok.

15. Leonova/Nosik - he was an actor who skated with Berezhnaya at the show, so Leonova was pulling Berezhnaya. Whatever

16. Averbukh/Klimkin/Abt - "Blue Canary" - was nice. Klimkin surprised me with... his hands! I was expecting the pinoccio, and he managed to be sort of not.

17. Averbukh - steps from their 2002OD alone but with fireworks. Looked a bit too hectic.

18. Leonova/Hvalko/Petrova/Tihonov - another highlight of the show imho. It was great to see those 2 couples doing the same things almost in syncro and PetTihs are probably really the only couple who can do Leonova/Khvalko's crazy things.

19. Drobiazko/Vanagas - Pirates of the Caribbean. When Drobiazko took to the ice Andrey thought it was Vanagas, and he wasn't the only one. Will not comment on their skate for the obvious reasons (being biased against them. Even if they skated well I would bash badly)

20. Abt - Gazolina. Ugh. First time I've seen him live, and WOW what a talent he is! Wish he wasn't wasting it on such idiotic programmes as this one and wish he actually did dunno, any competitive or exhibition programme. His skating is amazing and the only one who comes to my mind who might be close is Vasillevski.

21. Petrova/Butman

22. Guseva/Kostomarov

23. Chait/Sakhnovski - "Le chaim" which began with a bottle of whiskey in his hand (Andrey was secretly hoping that would be a hair colour and he would become the normal looking Sakh again). It's a slightly weird programme - for a change is on her and not him - i.e. she does all the steps and turns, he made a couple of lifts and sort of gives her the speed, but does almost no steps at all.

24. Bolshova/Tihonov

25. Navka/Kostomarov their Jackson medley. They are actually quite good))

26. Yagudin - spanish. Some sparkle was missing there. Did he have a stomach bug or something??

27. Navka/Basharov

Papa Boria gave a speach where he was speaking Russian with saying "thank you" in Hebrew all the time. Not sure which language sounds more ridiculous in his case.

The local kids were chasing after the (recycled) flowers, at some point they skated all together, apparently now they are children's theatre on ice. Yafit Assaf was the star with an almost 2A (Sokolova shakes in her boots, am sure).

The flowers throwing was quite crazy - as if there was a local competition who can leave more trash on the ice.

Since a friend who was nice enough to give me a lift home is a huge Yagudin fan she was trying to get his auhograph. She didn't, but I got some flowers, which was nice (not from Yagudin, but from a backstage worker who had to throw them all away!

It was nice altogether, though the final resolution by Andrey and I - competitions are fun. Shows are just shows.