A real, open-air Big Top, consisting of 13 gaudy rings, filled Red Square and caused an uproar this week involving everyone from the prime minister and the mayor to Russia's most famous clown.
The festival transformed the cobblestone square into a wildly colorful scene in the shadows of Lenin's mausoleum and St. Basil's Cathedral.The political flap over the circus in Red Square dampened the greatest show on earth for the organizers of the 10-day festival, which ended Thursday.
Protests by Communists, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and the Russian Orthodox Church only drew more attention to Russia's storied but struggling circus industry.
Clowns, jugglers, tightrope walkers and tiger tamers from more than 20 countries performed in four shows on elaborate sets depicting ancient civilizations of Russia, Egypt, India and Rome. Sphinxes and medieval castles stood where Soviets and tourists once queued for hours to get a glimpse of Lenin's embalmed body.
"I am happy that this festival is taking place in our country so we can show our acts to the world," Aishada Abakarova, a 50-year-old high wire artist at the New Moscow Circus, was quoted by The Moscow Times as saying. "It will give a lot of young performers, trying to start, a new name."
Big cultural events in Red Square, where Soviet tanks once paraded under the eyes of Communist leaders, aren't unusual since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The square has more recently hosted ballet performances, heavy metal gigs, a basketball game matching former Soviet Olympians and ex-NBA stars, and a pop concert for Yeltsin's campaign that drew 100,000 people in June.
Nothing has stirred a fuss like the circus, however.
Communists decried the "cynical desecration" of a site just steps from the "holy" places where the Soviet founder lies and other Communist luminaries are buried. Orthodox priests objected to the circus's proximity to St. Basil's.
The popular mayor, who has been acting more like a presidential candidate in recent days, asked Yeltsin to order the festival moved after receiving a request from a priest and presumed constituent.
"Red Square by its spirit and history is designed for events of a different nature," Luzhkov wrote.
In fact, the organizers contended, the site was chosen in part because Red Square is traditionally where Russia staged public festivals.
But the idea for the event was less than a unanimous hit in the circus community. Many said the $1 million in government expenditures would have been better put toward improving animals' conditions or funding cash-crunched circus schools in Russia, where many performers have left for the West because of the deteriorating conditions and pay.
"It is not the time to engage in such luxury," said Yuri Nikulin, Russia's internationally acclaimed clown and director of the Old Moscow Circus, who boycotted the show.
"Currently many esteemed circus performers and actors are living in poverty," he wrote in a letter to a Moscow newspaper.