The village of Melikhovo, the former country estate of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov in the Moscow region, hosted the twenty-sixth international theatre festival “Melikhovskaya Vesna”. It is Russia’s oldest theatre festival dedicated to productions based on Chekhov’s works or devoted to his life and legacy. This year’s programme featured more than twenty performances not only by Russian theatres but also by theatre companies from six foreign countries.
It was for the first time that actors of the A.S. Pushkin State Russian Drama Theatre from Ashgabat took part in the festival. The trip to Moscow carried special significance for the Ashgabat troupe, as the theatre is celebrating its centenary this year. The Russian theatre in Turkmenistan was founded in 1926, and it was named in honour of the poet in 1937, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Alexander Pushkin’s death. To this day, the theatre remains immensely popular among Ashgabat residents, with virtually every performance playing to a full house. Its repertoire encompasses classical works, contemporary drama and national plays.
Actors from Ashgabat are not frequent visitors to Russian theatre stages. The theatre last toured Russia in 2019, when audiences in Volgograd and Astrakhan saw the Pushkin Theatre troupe perform “We Will Certainly Meet Again” based on a play by Govshutgeldy Danatarov and Serdar Nepesov. The playwrights drew on Atadzhan Taganov’s novella “The Stranger”, which is based on real events of the mid nineteenth century. The central message of the work is the importance of cultural dialogue and mutual understanding.
The festival in Melikhovo presented a new artistic challenge for the young and ambitious theatre company from Turkmenistan. The venues in Melikhovo itself can no longer fully accommodate the steadily growing number of festival participants. As a result, the nearby towns of Serpukhov and Podolsk, not far from Chekhov in the Moscow region, provided their own theatre stages for the festival, thereby expanding its audience reach and geographical scope.
The Podolsk Drama Theatre company welcomed their colleagues from Ashgabat with open arms. It was on its stage that the visiting Pushkin Theatre troupe presented its festival production – an adaptation based on Anton Chekhov’s early yet widely known and enduringly popular vaudevilles “The Proposal”, “The Bear” and “The Jubilee”.
The small yet remarkably cosy auditorium of the temple of Melpomene in Podolsk was filled to capacity. The theatre’s management even had to bring in additional chairs to accommodate the audience. The performance fully lived up to expectations, leaving no one in the hall indifferent to what was unfolding on stage. Through their distinctive interpretation of Chekhov’s comic dramaturgy, the Ashgabat actors succeeded not only in entertaining the audience but also in prompting reflection on the enduring relevance of Chekhov’s literary genius in contemporary life.
The actors’ reward came in the form of enthusiastic applause from a grateful audience and the title of laureates of the International Theatre Festival “Melikhovskaya Vesna – 2026”. A particularly pleasant surprise for the Ashgabat troupe came when, following the performance, Vyacheslav Tkachuk – once a leading actor of the Pushkin Theatre and now an Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation, as well as the founder and artistic director of Moscow’s “Neskuchny Theatre” youth company – stepped onto the stage to greet them. Long time residents of Ashgabat still vividly remember Vyacheslav Tkachuk’s signature roles on the renowned stage of the Pushkin Theatre during the 1980s. The meeting became a symbolic passing of the creative baton from a representative of the older generation of “Pushkin Theatre” actors to their younger colleagues.
On behalf of the Theatre Practitioners’ Council of the Organizing Committee, Festival Executive Director Elena Alekseeva conveyed her deep appreciation to the artists of the A.S. Pushkin State Russian Drama Theatre and to the Ministry of Culture of Turkmenistan for their active and fruitful participation in the Melikhovo Theatre Forum.
The commemorative laureate’s award of the Melikhovo Festival was presented to the Ashgabat actors by Anastasia Yefremova, one of Moscow’s leading theatre critics and daughter of the renowned Russian actor and director Oleg Yefremov.
The festival’s community of theatre critics responded favourably to the interpretation of Chekhov’s comic dramaturgy proposed by the Pushkin Theatre company and its stage director Bayram Karadzhayev. The official festival press release described the play “Chekhov’s Vaudevilles” as follows.
Chekhov’s vaudeville has little in common with the French vaudeville tradition, which is essentially a light comedic play featuring songs and dances. Chekhov sought to break with the conventional perception of the genre as mere light entertainment, striving instead to elevate vaudeville to the level of great Russian literature. The characters in his one-act plays are not theatrical masks, but living individuals endowed with vivid and distinctive personalities. The A.S. Pushkin State Russian Drama Theatre from Turkmenistan, however, offers a production that deliberately departs from Chekhov’s own conception of vaudeville.
The text is partially sung to music, while the action itself is interspersed with songs and dances. In the actors’ interpretation, Chekhov’s subtle psychological depth gives way to vivid theatrical colours that shape the characters. The three comic one act plays – “The Proposal”, “The Bear” and “The Jubilee” – are linked by episodes in which Chekhov himself receives angry letters and finds himself on the verge of public condemnation. In these letters, he is vehemently urged to stop writing for the stage, being told that such work will never be needed or appreciated.
In the final scene, one of the spectators lights a candle for the protagonist, symbolically suggesting that Chekhov’s legacy remains indispensable – not only in Russia, but also far beyond its borders, wherever people seek to engage with his work. And “Melikhovskaya Vesna” reaffirms this year after year.
The performance staged at the Podolsk Drama Theatre became an important, though by no means the only memorable event of the Turkmen art delegation’s brief stay on the hospitable soil of the Moscow region. According to Sokhbet Serbazov, Director of the A.S. Pushkin State Russian Drama Theatre, these days became unforgettable moments of direct engagement with the heritage of great Russian culture for the actors of the Ashgabat theatre, whose own artistic traditions span a century. Immersing themselves in the vibrant whirl of festival events, encountering the work of colleagues from different theatres and countries, or simply standing in quiet reflection at the threshold of the Melikhovo estate outbuilding where Chekhov wrote his world famous play “The Seagull” – all of this was an experience of immense value.
Undoubtedly, for the theatre company from Ashgabat, as for all the other festival participants, the meetings and events at Melikhovo will serve as yet another powerful incentive to reach new artistic heights.