It's a Proper Circus!
Such was the look of the wooden structure that housed theatrical and circus performances at public festivities: the booth, or balagan. This one is the celebrated balagan of the merchant Nikolaev, set up in the Admiralty District of Saint Petersburg. It was called the "Great Roller Coaster" (Bolshoy Samokat).
Booths of this kind appeared in Russia during the reign of Catherine II. Performances were given several times a day, and the public was summoned by criers from little balconies.
Something resembling the balagan in this photograph of 1898 by Karl Bulla can be seen in the film "The Barber of Siberia", at the festivities by the Novodevichy Convent, though there the booth is given over to child performers. As a rule, such travelling theatres included puppeteers and acrobats, as well as comic and fairy-tale entertainments.
