The ballet of this time was, of course, Italian-French in conception and music. But the early foreign masters soon produced a school of native instructors who gradually made use of the peculiarities of national dances. Many Russian ballets were already at this time of national color, one of them, _Baba Yaga_, having been written by the Czar himself. _Baba Yaga_ is a Russian fairy tale. Like the English ‘Witch on a Broomstick,’ _Baba Yaga_ rides through the sky on a huge mortar, propelling herself with a pestle, while her great tongue licks up the clouds as she passes. The dancers were trained in various military or municipal schools and the teaching was unsystematic in every respect. The first impetus to a national dancing academy was given by Empress Anna Ivanovna, the sister of Peter the Great, who felt that the education of the dancers was not systematic enough, and regretted that the best dancers had to be hired from abroad. In 1735, she asked Christian Wellmann, a teacher of gymnastics in the Cadet Corps, to found a dramatic dancing school in which girls and boys could be educated for the ballet. The Italian composer Francesca Areja was employed to take care of the music, while Lande, a pupil of Noverre, was to act as ballet director. As the newly formed school could not get children of the nobility to learn dancing, Lande trained a number of poor city boys and girls free of any charge, and with them gave a performance at the palace. The Empress was so pleased with their dance that she instructed that the pupils be educated in the Imperial Dramatic Dancing School free of charge. III