On 20th June I was at the Crystal Turandot awards ceremony http://www.tyrandot.ru/. I even had the honour of presenting the prize to Armen Borisovich Dzhigarkhanyan, which was a surprise and great pleasure for me. I admire Armen Borisovich’s talent and have the greatest respect for his work. Though actually, to be precise, it’s not so much “work” as “Service to the Arts”. And he does it with no fuss, with such calm and dignity, with all his talent and all his life. It’s wonderful that the most prestigious Turandot prize - For Valorous Service to the Theatre, Honour and Dignity - this year went to Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, People’s Artiste of the USSR.

The Crystal Turandot is one of the top awards in the world of theatre, alongside the Golden Mask. Everybody who is anybody in Moscow theatre was there. I presented the precious figurine together with Vladimir Zeldin. And that’s how I ended up alongside two wonderful actors – so talented, courteous, wise and dignified…the pride of Russian theatre!

By the way, during the ceremony I invited Vladimir Zeldin to star in my TV show Steps towards Success, and he accepted. The show was actually filmed last week and will be shown on Channel 5 in the near future. Getting people like Armen Dzhigarkhanyan and Vladimir Zeldin to come on the show is definitely a step towards success for Steps towards Success.