“Never look back, otherwise you will fall down the stairs,” Nureyev liked to say. Rudolf Nureyev was able to rethink and improve his art in a way that no other dancer had been able to do, either before or since. After escaping to the West, in just a few months he managed to change the audience's perception of classical ballet and, in fact, created a completely new ballet audience. Nureyev not only returned the importance of male dance and male parts in ballet performances, but also brought a sensual, sexual element to this art, which had long been associated with fragile, airy heroines and their ephemeral partners. Having traveled the globe, Nureyev became the most traveling dancer in history, a traveling preacher of ballet. The book debunks many popular myths that accompany the figure of Nureyev to this day: for example, the author of the book, Diana Solvay, convincingly proves that Rudolf’s flight from the USSR was not a pre-planned decision . To work on the biography, she traveled to Russia to piece together information about Nureyev's early life, up to his emigration. She managed to obtain recently declassified documents, as well as personal interviews with his friends, family and even some of his competitors. Having objectively studied the materials, Diana Solvay piece by piece recreates the real portrait of Nureyev and sheds light on previously unknown facts of his biography. The publishing design is preserved in PDF A4 format.