All right at the big top

It's been a while since I last updated, but I'll keep it sweet. On the 1st February, Altaa and I went to the the permanent circus in UB, where it was the final night of a visiting Russian circus. The highlight of the circus was not the main attraction of the big cat tigers but their smaller, house-adapted cousins. These moggies put the preceding poodles in the shade. The most impressive act to which cats do not naturally perform was one cat twirling a pole aflame at both ends with its front paws while lying on its back in a box on a spinning table.
This year's Russian circus was a cut above the offerings of last winter when the elephants were the saving grace. Altaa and I had our experience enhanced by being close to the front when only paying for normal fare tickets.
There was more audience participation with the clowns over last year, playing leapfrog with guys of different sizes drawn from the stands (including a ten year-old), crazy dancing with other audience members (with the clowns playing the goat at saying goodbye) and getting two people to inflate balloons to exploding point by bouncing up and down on a chair pad while wearing silly wigs. The pony troupe was a decent opener to proceedings with a gorgeous black horse, wearing a feather-duster-style unicorn horn and trying to chew away its bit, accompanied by a couple of pygmy ponies with shaggy hair, one of them trained to shake its head in an anthropomorphic refusal to accede to the trainer's request. If the pony knew what it was doing, this was not the wisest course of action with the trainer having a whip in her hand, no matter how sparingly it was used. The solo acrobat, using just two red drapes to hoist herself around at high altitude, was impressive as were the air ballet despite the blidning spotlights associated with the latter. The normal acrobats didn't do anything especially extroadinary - for their trade - but were enlivened by another clown among their number. The double act of jugglers did their tricks, switching to fire juggling partway through. The poodles just jumped over or through a series of hurdles (occasionally running around the hurdle if it couldn't be bothered) or walked around on their hind legs. The plus point was the biggest of the poodles, a dirty white one, constantly yapped away from its pedestal when not engaged, dopily lolling its tongue out. The cats did far more, proving that they can be trained, doing everything the poodles did and more, such as lightning climbing fifteen-foot poles to the perch at the top by virtue of their claws and spring power and much other versatility involvinga climbing frame, including using only their 'armpits' to advance along two suspended rails. Naturally, after every piece they landed on their feet. The fire-twirling cat was really amazing.
All this was before the break. The tigers got the second part all to themselves. All were magnificently groomed creatures, the two Siberian white-and-black tigers being gorgeous. Their five Indian compatriots were smaller in size but still beautiful. Whatever one's views on animals in circuses, being so close to them was pleasing (a flexible wire mesh had been thrown up round the ring). They were all quite docile; I can't remember one roar - a far cry from the wild animals posing on the tickets, but I didn't mind. Watching the tigers, it was more enjoyable seeing them do things that were not part of their training, such as sniffing each other's bottoms, taking an impromptu bath or getting off their stools to cradle one another in their paws (the last part not part of the act since their 'mistress' was conducting other tigers at the time). This was more satisfying than seeing them jump over a pipe pumping flames upwards onto converted disco balls or weave in and out of adjustable rods on a raised platform.
Russian circus stopping off in Mongolia it may be but I don't know if it has any connections to Moscow State as it doesn't run under that name. Certainly, the prestigious Moscow one has a far bigger ring than UB's giving freer rein to the invention of the circus artists. Altaa had a great time though which is the main thing and so did I.

On another note we saw a car with one headlight normal, the other one which was hazy purple, then switched to melow yellow after a few seconds, then deep blue after a few more - the colours of disco lights. Obviously, the owner could not find a headlight replacement and so had installed as the light a disco mood-mixer instead!