Raikin Estrada Theatre

The Raikin Estrada Theatre is a state theater in St. Petersburg that opened in the autumn of 1939 in Leningrad and became the first professional variety (estrada) theater in the USSR. The institution occupies a historic building at 27 Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street and since 2002 has borne the name of People's Artist of the USSR Arkady Raikin, who led this stage for nearly forty years.

The plot under the building was already built up in the 18th century: here stood the inn of the French merchant Philippe Demut, which later grew into one of the city's most respectable hotels. The rooms of "Demut's Inn" hosted Griboyedov, Batyushkov, Chaadaev, and Turgenev, and in 1828 Alexander Pushkin wrote his poem Poltava here. By the early 20th century the premises were occupied by the fashionable restaurant "Medved" ("The Bear"), whose regulars included Feodor Chaliapin and Vera Komissarzhevskaya. Later, already in Soviet times, the former restaurant's premises were adapted into a theatrical stage, and in the autumn of 1939 the new Leningrad Theater of Estrada and Miniatures received its first audiences.

The building itself was erected in 1796 in the Classicist style, and in 1877 it was rebuilt in eclectic forms. In 1898, when the premises were occupied by a commercial bank, a glass roof on arched metal trusses was built over the hall — a structure that would later become one of the theater's architectural hallmarks. A major restoration in 2010–2011 returned the building's historic appearance while also fitting it with modern stage equipment: the restored glass dome now crowns an auditorium seating 480 across several levels, and a transformable stage can be arranged in five different configurations.

In 1942 Arkady Raikin took charge of the theater, and during the war years the company gave concerts to airmen, gun crews, and sailors, surviving evacuation to Tashkent before returning to Leningrad in 1944. Among the performers who took this stage over the following decades were Alexander Menaker, Maria Mironova, Klavdiya Shulzhenko, and Leonid Utyosov. In 1962, during a tour in Odessa, Raikin noticed and invited into the troupe young performers from the "Parnas-2" theater: Viktor Ilchenko, Roman Kartsev, and the future satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky. In the 1980s the company moved to Moscow and in 1987 was renamed "Satirikon"; that same year Arkady Raikin died, and leadership passed to his son Konstantin.

After Raikin's troupe relocated, the St. Petersburg stage continued to work under its own name. Yuri Galtsev, Honored Artist of Russia, became the troupe's new head at the end of 2008, and under his direction the company noticeably refreshed its repertoire. Today the theater stages musical comedies, dramatic productions, and children's performances, and the building itself remains an architectural monument of regional significance.

The Raikin Estrada Theatre combines a rare historical depth — from the era of Pushkin to the flourishing of Soviet estrada — with a living theatrical life today. Protected by the state, the building and its continuing stage tradition make it a notable part of the city's cultural heritage.