linguistic:translation
Principal with Kirov Ballet

Upon his graduation in 1958, Nureyev joined the Kirov Ballet (now Mariinsky). He moved immediately beyond the corps level, and was given solo roles as a principal dancer from the outset. Nureyev regularly partnered with Natalia Dudinskaya, the company's senior ballerina and wife of its director, Konstantin Sergeyev. Dudinskaya, who was 26 years his senior, first chose him as her partner in the ballet Laurencia.

Before long, Nureyev became one of the Soviet Union's best-known dancers. From 1958 to 1961, in his three years with the Kirov, he danced 15 roles, usually opposite his partner, Ninel Kurgapkina, with whom he was very well paired, although she was almost a decade older than he was. Nureyev and Kurgapkina were invited to dance at a gathering at Khrushchev 's dacha, and in 1959 they were allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union, dancing in Vienna at the International Youth Festival. Not long after, he was told by the Ministry of Culture that he would not be allowed to go abroad again. In one memorable incident, Nureyev interrupted a performance of Don Quixote for 40 minutes, insisting on dancing in tights and not in the customary trousers. He relented in the end, but his preferred dress code was adopted in later performances.