Uliana Lopatkina is only 30, but “despite her tender age, is now lionised almost universally as the greatest ballerina today in Russia, a country where they know about such things. Effortlessly, it seems, in the 10 years since a 5ft 9in beanpole with a square jaw and an apparently boneless body emerged from the juniors of the Kirov Ballet, a living legend has grown up around her.”