National Opera House of Ukraine

My dream has been that while traveling in Easter Europe I get the opportunity to have a night out in one   of the operas houses in any of the cities I visit. By chance, it happened in Kiev.

This is the story:
As soon as we got rid of our luggage in our great hotel we took of to visit the city. We came across an old fashioned tram and decided to take it to as far as it would go. Taking such a local transportation is always fun because they go through the areas where locals live and work and one gets to see more than with a commercial city tour. Along the way a gentleman sat in front of us and we started conversing. He said that he just took his car to a repair shop and that just he wanted to use his free time till the car is fixed to see the city on the tram. He told us he was a musician and that he plays in the symphony. Then we started talking about operas and I was pretty enthusiastic.  He then said if he meet him at a certain time at the Golden Gate metro station he will get us tickets to that night's performance of Minkus' Don Quixote ballet at the National Opera House of Ukraine. We never got his whole name - only that his name was Andrei. He did meet us, gave us the tickets, we had dinner together and, still did not give us his full name, nor what instrument he played in the orchestra.
 
National Opera House of Kiev
Me at the hallway of the opera house

View from our seats. we were one of the first ones to arrive.

Andrej, who made all this possible is playing the double bass
Andrej, thank you very much for such a memorable night in Kiev!

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