Where Does The Name Bolshoi Come?

The name of the famous Bolshoi theatre company, located in Moscow, Russia, has been derived from the word 'Bolshoi', which is the Russian word for large.

The main Bolshoi Theatre and Opera Company, which is a very famous landmark in the Russian capital of Moscow, has been in existence for the last 230 years. It is currently undergoing repairs and maintenance, and has been shut down. However, the New Bolshoi Theatre, which is adjacent to the main Bolshoi Theatre, is still going strong and continues to stage operas, theatrical performances and ballets. The old Bolshoi Theatre, which is also known as the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was built in the year 1873 in the city of Saint Petersburg, which was the erstwhile capital of the Russian empire until the Russian Revolution in 1917. Kamenny is the Russian word for 'stone'. The theatre company at Saint Petersburg has staged the premieres of Mikhail Glinka's opera 'A Life for the Tsar' on November 29, 1836 and 'Russian and Lyudmila'  (Glinka's operatic adaptation of the 1820 poem of the same name by Aleksandr Pushkin) on November 27, 1842.