Master and Margarita Ball
Location: Spaso House, Moscow
Date: April 29, 2004
On the evening of April 29, Ambassador and Lisa Vershbow held a special event at Spaso House - a Master and Margarita Ball celebrated in remembrance of Spaso House's 70-year significance as a venue for generations of U.S.-Russian cultural exchange. The ball scene in The Master and Margarita was inspired by a party thrown at Spaso House 69 years ago by Ambassador William Bullitt, and attended by Mikhail Bulgakov. Unimpressed by the diplomatic party circuit of Stalinist Moscow, Ambassador Bullitt ordered his staff to organize a unique party for which, he said, "the sky is the limit," and from which the Bulgakovs were driven home at dawn in the Ambassador's car.