Theatre “Ostrov” (“The Island“) was founded by a troupe of professional actors led by A. V. Bolonin in 1990. A.V.Bolonin is the Honored Worker of Russia, art director and the head of the Theatre “Ostrov”, actor of the theatre and cinema. The first performance staged at the theatre «Invitation to the execution» on the novel by Nabokov was recognized as the best performance in 1991. The second premier of the theatre was “Hamlet” by W. Shakespeare and later “guilt without guilty” on the play by A.N.Ostrovsky. The theatre staged more than 30 drama plays and performances during its years.

It is a small theatre which raises serious and important questions for its viewers, speaks with its spectators about deep and meaningful things, about problems of the human soul.

During the first years the theatre didn’t have its own premises, wandering about the city stages and barely making ends meet: all the money the theatre managed to earn went on renting premises. In 1996 the theatre received at its disposal a semi-basement of 500 sq.m. in the House of Benoit on Kamennoostrovsky prospect, where it is located today. The tenement house of Benoit was built by the order of the First Russian Insurance Society in the style of neoclassicism on the project of Benoit in 1911-1914. The building is a monument of history and culture of regional importance.