Word: kchessinska
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...year exile, he was escorted, amid armored cars, red flags and circling searchlights, to a chic town house. There, speaking to the crowd from a second-story balcony, he proclaimed the start of worldwide revolution. Before it became Bolshevik headquarters, that villa had been occupied by Mathilde Kchessinska, once Czar Nicholas II's great & good friend, certainly one of the best dancers of all time and one of two ever to bear the lofty title of prima ballerina assoluta.* In Berlin last week, another ballerina was given that title by sentimental oldtimers: Galina Ulanova, 44, the darling...
...Only other to hold this internationally respected rank handed out by the Russian Imperial Ballet-and unused in the Soviet Union today-was Italy's Pierina Legnani, who startled the Russians with her famous 32 fouettés (whipping turns) in 1893. She died in 1923. Kchessinska, 81, still lives in Paris, with her husband, the Grand Duke André, 75. The Duke does the daily shopping while the Absolute Ballerina gives ballet lessons and does a little polite gambling on the side...
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