ST. PETERSBURG (AFP) ―The hugely ambitious and well-connected director of Saint Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre will on Thursday oversee the opening of a controversial new ballet and opera house, one of the biggest cultural projects in post-Soviet Russian history.

The new “Mariinsky-2” theater will open with a gala on Thursday night conducted by director Valery Gergiev with great performers from across the world and expected to be attended by President Vladimir Putin.

The new theater lies just behind the historic Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, which was founded in the 18th century and was the birthplace of the great ballets of Tchaikovsky like “Sleeping Beauty” and “Swan Lake.”

“Russia has built a new theater and this is just as much a huge event for the country as the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi (in 2014),” Gergiev, who turns 60 on Thursday, said in an interview with government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

After years of false starts, the new theater has taken years to build and some have already criticized its cuboid-shaped design as a blot on the historic city’s landscape.