Grigorovich’s ballets built the Bolshoi’s fame. Now the theater may have to pay his assistant for the right to dance them

Meduza has independently confirmed a Post- report that legendary choreographer Yuri Grigorovich, shortly before his death, gave his assistant Ruslan Pronin the copyright to 11 of his productions free of charge.

Grigorovich died on May 19, 2025. Several weeks later, on July 3, Pronin founded a nonprofit called the Yuri Grigorovich Foundation and transferred all rights to the foundation. He then demanded royalties from all theaters in Russia and abroad staging Grigorovich’s ballets — in the Bolshoi’s case, about 1 million rubles per performance.

The 11 productions include Grigorovich’s revised versions of classical ballets, such as Swan Lake and Giselle, as well as original ballets like Spartacus and Ivan the Terrible. These productions helped build the Bolshoi’s modern global brand.

According to Post-, Grigorovich’s nephew and sole heir, Nikolai Karatygin, a psychophysiologist, filed a fraud complaint in December 2025. He insists the 98-year-old choreographer could not have understood what he was doing when signing the rights over to Pronin. A source close to the investigation told the magazine that an expert assessment supported Karatygin’s claim. For now, Pronin remains a witness in the case, and no charges have been filed.

The Bolshoi’s management filed its own complaint, prompting a second criminal case that was later merged with the first. A Post- source said the Bolshoi had expected the rights to pass to Karatygin, who would then hand them over to the theater. Grigorovich reportedly said as much before his death.

Post- suggested Pronin’s actions could leave the Bolshoi without The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, but Meduza has learned this is unlikely: the theater will likely work with whoever holds the rights.

Pronin danced with the Bolshoi Ballet from 1988 until the late 2000s. In 2011, he became the Bolshoi’s ballet company manager. According to media reports, he could have become acting artistic director in 2013 after an assailant threw acid in the face of Sergei Filin, but he declined. His contract expired that year, and Grigorovich offered him an assistant position. Since then, Pronin has restaged many of Grigorovich’s ballets worldwide, mounting Spartacus alone six times in Beijing, Astana, Seoul, Yerevan, Munich, and Antwerp. In 2023, he became chief choreographer of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater.