Ballet.Magazine, August, 1997 / Kirov Ballet. Romeo and Juliet. Coliseum by Jennifer Delaney

Maya Dumchenko was a lovely Juliet. She is just eighteen herself, and captured the youth and eagerness of Juliet without making her seem too young to fall in love. Once again, she demonstrated that her stage persona is full of charm. Victor Baranov was an excellent Romeo opposite her. If at first he came across as a bit of a drip, wandering around stage draped in a cloak in a most melancholy fashion, as soon as he met his Juliet, he proved he was just as much in love with her as she was with him.

The New York Times, Oktober 7, 1997 / Kirov Dancers go touring, with a mix of Stars and Youngers by A. Kisselgoff

...Ms. Makhalina, once the Kirov's leading ballerina, exuded her usual glamour; a dancer of extremes who does not always pay attention to her feet, she made even better use of her harmonious upper body in the ''Sleeping Beauty'' pas de deux, partnered by a stalwart Viktor Baranov. Ms. Ayupova, who was Mr. Baranov's ecstatic Juliet in the balcony pas de deux from Leonid Lavrovsky's "Romeo and Juliet"..

Dance Magazine, November 24, 1998 /Kirov Ballet Maryinsky theater by A.Degen

...the evening ended with Alexander Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy. Uliana Lopatkina, Svetlana Zakharova, Irma Nioradze, Sofia Gumerova, Maya Dumchenko, Vyacheslav Samodurov, Victor Baranov, Andrei Yakovlev, Ilya Kuznetsov, and Vladimir Archangelsky delighted the eye with resplendent neoclassical dance. What appeared almost as choreographic chaos in the expertly staged finale led the participants not so much to ecstasy as to unity. It should be said in all fairness that the whole composition seemed too slow-moving. Though the evening was a success--mostly due to the right selection of first-class performers...

Ballet.Magazine, June 2001 /Michael Fokine and what to look for in his ballets by Richard Glasstone

As a curtain raiser to the Kirov's Fokine programme, the Friends of Covent Garden and of the Kirov arranged a study evening at the Clore Studio. It was presented by the excellent Richard Glasstone and there was an opportunity to see two Kirov principals, Zhanna Ayupova and Viktor Baranov dance the Waltz in C Sharp Minor from Chopiniana...