THE BALLOON MAN

Russians Get Circus From Family That Gave Them Big Macs, Coca-Cola

Craig Cohon is bringing the Cirque du Soleil show "Zarkana" to Russia. Source: Cirque du Soleil via Bloomberg
By Lyubov Pronina - Jul 26, 2011
The father and son who boosted Russian consumer freedom with global brands McDonald’s and Coca- Cola are on a mission to do the same for cultural choice with the Cirque du Soleil’s “Zarkana” show.
George Cohon battled communist bureaucrats for 14 years to bring Big Macs to the Soviet Union in 1990 just before its collapse. His son Craig started building Russia’s first Coca- Cola plant after 18 months of talks. It took less than a year for him to get Kremlin officials to agree that “Zarkana” perform inside the country’s 500-year-old seat of power.

The acrobatic rock opera is described by its creators as a cross between arcane and bizarre, with jugglers and a high- flying spider woman. It debuted in June at the Radio City Music Hall in New York and is due to feature at the Kremlin Palace from February 2012 -- the first three-month stretch in its history.

Performers in the new Cirque du Soleil show "Zarkana" running through Oct. 8 at Radio City Music Hall. Photographer: Jeremy Daniel/Publicity Office via Bloomberg
The palace, built in 1961, seats about 6,000 people and has hosted Elton John, heavy metal band Scorpions and Michael Flatley’s show “Lord of the Dance.”
The Montreal-based circus, which has become a global franchise with permanent shows in Las Vegas and elsewhere, may be helped by its Russian links. Its co-founder Guy Laliberte, a former fire-eater, paid Russia $35 million to shoot off to the International Space Station in 2009 as a tourist.
Cirque has invested 1.2 billion rubles ($43 million) in Russia since 2008, selling more than 500,000 tickets in two years. It is spending $57 million on running the Zarkana show in New York and Moscow. Cirque plans to invest $50 million more to give it a permanent presence in Russia. The Cohons own 25 percent of the circus’s Russian venture.
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