It is with sorrow that I learnt that on 13 December the outstanding ballet master and dancer Bulat Ayukhanov died in Almaty

It is with sorrow that I learnt that on 13 December the outstanding ballet master and dancer Bulat Ayukhanov died in Almaty. He would have turned 85 this year.

Bulat Gazizovich and I had been acquainted since 2011; I often spoke about this remarkable artist and wrote about him. I remember Bulat Ayukhanov as a man of splendid humour, erudition and energy, who shared tirelessly his stories of the luminaries of the ballet world, of life behind the scenes of the world's stages and of ballet in the USSR. In every respect he was out of the ordinary: in his appearance and manner of speech, in his views on culture and in his approach to teaching. I remember Ayukhanov joking that he would write a book called "Pas de bourrée through Life" and would lift the veil on so many riddles of twentieth-century ballet that it would probably have to be sold at a thousand euros a copy.

Bulat Ayukhanov headed his own dance theatre to his last day. It came into being in 1967 as the ensemble of choreographic miniatures "Young Ballet of Alma-Ata", a unique case in the USSR: a teacher and ballet master, formerly a soloist of an academic theatre, created a company whose task was to stage ballets to music not intended for dancing. For a long time he headed the Alma-Ata Choreographic School. For the last twenty years his company bore the proud title of Academic Theatre. Even in his youth Ayukhanov was a striking figure, if I am not mistaken becoming almost the youngest head of a ballet company in the Union. In old age he became a living legend of the theatre.

Bulat Ayukhanov embodies the best traditions of Soviet ballet and is an indisputable asset of Kazakhstan's culture. One of his chief merits was that he represented the Kazakh state on the world stage, introducing foreign audiences to Kazakh theatre and dance, and revealing to the international public the names of Kazakhstani composers, since many of Ayukhanov's productions were set precisely to the music of native authors.

Ayukhanov's name has long since entered history, but I am sure that the memory of him too will be a very long and bright one.