Circus Ciniselli
The Circus Ciniselli (Russian: Цирк Чинизелли ) was the first circus in Russia to be built as a solid stone structure . It is located in Saint Petersburg on the bank of the left Neva arm, Fontanka . The building that still exists was opened on December 26, 1877. It has an arena with a diameter of 13 meters and stables for around 150 horses. The architect was Vasily Kenel .
The Italian circus artist Gaetano Ciniselli (1815–1881) first visited Saint Petersburg in 1847 as a member of the circus troupe of Alessandro Guerra . In 1869 he returned to Russia with his brother-in-law Carl-Magnus Hinne and performed in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Ciniselli stayed in Russia and took over the two circus locations from Hinne in 1875.
The Ciniselli family ran the circus operations until they emigrated in 1921. They often rented out the buildings for entertainment events with high numbers of visitors, such as the World Wrestling Championship in 1898 or Max Reinhardt's production of King Oedipus in 1911 .
The world's first circus museum has been located in two halls of the building since 1928, and in 2002 more than 80,000 items were exhibited.
Web links
- Circus Ciniselli in the online encyclopedia Saint Petersburg (English, Russian )
- Website of the Ciniselli Circus, which reopened on December 18, 2015: http://www.circus.spb.ru/en/
Coordinates: 59 ° 56 ′ 18.8 ″ N , 30 ° 20 ′ 28.2 ″ E