On the first of December in the ITAR-TASS a press conference devoted to problems of reconstruction of the main building of the Bolshoi theatre was held. Alexandr Sokolov, Minister of culture and mass communications of Russian Federation, Mikhail Shvydkoi, Head of Federal Department of culture and cinematography, Anatoliy Iksanov, General Director of The Bolshoi Company, Alexandr Vedernikov, the theatre Art Director and Principal Conductor, and Alexey Ratmansky, Art Director of the Bolshoi Ballet Troupe, participated in it.

The Main Stage will be closed July 2, 2005. The reconstruction will last 2 and a half years i.e. six months longer than Mariinsky’s reconstruction, which is going on parallelly, and Italian La Scala’s reconstruction coming to a close in the nearest future. The Bolshoi premises are enclosed on an "island" so it can expand only downward, under the ground where the river Neglinka and its inflows go. That is why the geodetic environment of Teatralnaya Square creates a lot of difficulties for the Bolshoi to expand.

The reconstruction will proceed in two stages. The first implies reinforcing the foundations of the building. The second includes reconstruction itself. The Yugoslavian company "Napred" ("Forward") was reported to be acting as the general contractor. Though 16 companies declared the desire to bid the tender, only four of them submitted the necessary documents. Now the terms of the contract are being negotiated. As М. Shvydkoi pointed out, the process is very serious, and quite often the results might be unpredictable. Besides its high technical performance the company is to confirm the availability of sufficient financial resources.

The tender for delivering stage equipment was won by the German company Bosch Rexroth, one of the leading on the market of such equipment and offering most expensive goods. But, and again we quote M. Shvydkoi as saying that, the high prices for the company’s home appliances and fridges, as compared with the other manufacturers’, don’t prevent consumers from setting their eyes on them.

Аnatoly Iksanov told the journalists how the life of the Bolshoi Company would go on in the extreme conditions of the remodelling process. The New Stage will help to survive in the circumstances, which, however, isn’t going to ease the company’s policy in terms of job cutting (still it was said, that it could take place in maintenance and among stage workers mainly). The company would do their best to keep the repertoire and structure of the troupe unchanged, though many of the productions would need remodelling and resizing to fit the chamber New Stage and might undergo scenery reconstructing and stagings editing. The grand scale performances such as " Boris Godunov ", "Spartacus ", " Pharaoh’s Daughter ", " Sleeping Beauty " inadjustable to the New Stage format would probably be shown in the State Kremlin Palace, with the prospect being negotiated with the Palace management.

Iksanov mentioned that the Company was going to considerably increase the number of tours, including home and the CIS countries. The broad-scale Russia tour program is to start on February 10, 2006 in the city of Rostov-on-the-Don. He also mentioned that the tour program to be alive would very much depend on financial support of local authorities and sponsors. And there is every sign to believe that the Bolshoi will receive it.

The reconstructed theatre will open its doors on 1st of January, 2008. The exterior of the building will remain unchanged, though the northern facade will undergo some alterations: the attached to it warehouses will be removed. The total cost of the project, according to the planners, will not exceed the cost of dismantling the hotel "Rossia ".

The most optimistic was Аlexandr Sokolov’s, Russian Federation minister of culture, message. In his opinion, in spite of all the geodetic difficulties the planners will have to overcome, the Company’s program of its main building reconstruction proved to be much better organised and arranged than that of the Mariinsky Company. From the very start the Company had got its second stage (New stage) in Moscow ready and developed the ways how to busy the troupe during the period of reconstruction. Virtually, getting down to the process of reconstruction means light at the end of the tunnel.