Investigators in Russia are trying to establish the cause of a fire which extensively damaged an historic theatre in Moscow.

Emergency crews battled for several hours to bring the blaze at the Stansilavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko theatre under control. They managed to prevent the flames from spreading from an old part of the building to a newly-constructed area. The outer walls remain standing but a section of the roof collapsed. The theatre had been closed for renovation following a fire in 2003. It was formed by the merger in 1941 of the opera and dance troupes of two giants of the Russian performing arts world – Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.

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