Putin ally Gergiev gets top theatre job at Bolshoi as well as Mariinsky

His predecessor at the Bolshoi, 76-year-old Vladimir Urin, did not explain why he was stepping down after 10 years in the job. Although he joined a number of cultural figures in signing an anti-war letter at the start of the war, he later admitted that some names had been removed from Bolshoi posters because they had made anti-war statements.