RUSSIA/UNITED KINGDOM: Madonna fans in Moscow rush for concert tickets ahead of her first ever performance in Russia next month

Russian fans of Madonna queued for hours in Moscow on Tuesday (August 8) for a chance to snap up a ticket for her first ever concert in Russia, planned in September. "We are here to buy concert tickets for the most popular singer, Madonna. We are here for quite a lot time and think that we will have our tickets. From the morning people are saying that there are not enough tickets for everybody who wants them, so we are worried but hope we will have our tickets," said Madonna fan Darya. Moscow ticket agents said they expected the first batch of Madonna concert tickets to sell-out very quickly. "Today we are trading 1500 tickets just for the dance floor, selling at 1500 rubles each. I think these tickets will be sold out in an hour and a half, because we are trading on line as well as, over the counter ticket sales, for those who lined up here early this morning," said Nikolai Miller, head of Moscow's "ShowTrade" ticket agency. Moscow will be the last venue for Madonna's world-wide "Confessions Tour", which has already been touched by controversy, after the singer staged a mock-crucifixion as part of her show in Rome on Sunday (August 5), ignoring a storm of protest and accusations of blasphemy from the Roman Catholic Church. And she looks likely to face another storm when the tour reaches Moscow in September, where the Russian Orthodox Church has advised its followers to boycott the show because of the crucifixion stunt. But on Tuesday (August 8), Madonna's fans in Moscow did not seem bothered by the controversy. "Well I like this singer I am following all her concerts, all her songs, I like everything. I think this is a real festival real event in pop music, I think for Russia this is the event of the year," said Andrey. Sergei, another Russian Madonna fan said: "Such a great legend of pop music is coming to Moscow for the first time, so I think this is a very remarkable event." It is not the first time Madonna, whose father is a Catholic Italian American, has caused religious anger for her controversial religious and sexual imagery. Catholic leaders condemned as blasphemous her 1989 video for hit song "Like a Prayer", featuring burning crosses, statues crying blood and Madonna seducing a black Jesus. In 2004, a Vatican group warned that her latest religious belief "Kabbalah", a mystical from of Judaism, was a potential threat to the Roman Catholic faithful.

ITN Source | August 10, 2006

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