The Year of Russian Culture and Language opened in Rome, Italy on 16th of February.

The opening ceremony to the start of the “summit” of 2 cultures was attended by Russian president Dmitriy Medvedev, who flew into Italy with an official visit for this particular event, along with the Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi.

The cross-cultural program will be very diverse and rich. In Florence in the famous Palazzo Pitti the 'From Religious Iconography to Malevich. Masterpieces of Russian Art.” exhibition will include works of art from the Russian State Museum. In “Brera”, the largest gallery in Milan, Italians will be able to enjoy the works of Schukin and Morozov, from the collections of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

The Russian “invasion” continues in the Appennines. The Boris Eifman Ballet Theater, the Moiseev folk dance ensemble, the “Virtuosos of Moscow” Orchestra, and the National Emsebles from Dagestan, Yakutiya, Buryatia, Chechnya and other Russian regions.

Planned tours of the legendary theater group La Scala will occur in November and December on the historic Bolshoi Theater stage. These performances will serves as a kind of finale for the Year of Russia – Italy 2011. In March the Mariinsky Theatre will welcome their colleagues from the Rome Opera, who will bring the "Nabucco" opera by Giuseppe Verdi to Russian viewers.

Another famous Italian team will also go on tour in october: the soloists of the San Carlo Opera Theater in Naples and will demonstrate their vocal mastery in Giovanni Batista Pergolezi’s “Olimpiada” Opera.

Approximately at the same time in other Russian cities including Khanty-Mansiysk, Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk will be graced by performances from the Milan based Drama Theatre "Piccolo Teatro, which was founded after the war by the prominent directors Giorgio Strehler and Paolo Grassi.

The Puskin State Museum of Fine Arts will also meet with the masterpieces from the finest Italian museums, inlcuding: "Athene and the Centaur" by Botticelli, "The Lady with a Unicorn” by Raphael . During the same fall, an exhibition of works by Caravaggio provided by the Milanese Brera art gallery will occur at the Kremlin. Huge lines of visitors are also expected at the upcoming exhibition "Treasures of the Medici” in Moscow.

Source: www.rg.ru