Russia on Friday appointed notoriously pro-Kremlin maestro Valery Gergiev, a personal friend of President Vladimir Putin for decades, to lead Moscow's world famous Bolshoi Theatre. 

Gergiev takes over Russia's main stage at a time when Moscow is increasingly casting culture as a battleground in its clash with the West while troops fight in Ukraine. 

The musical giant -- shunned by the West for failing to denounce the Ukraine campaign -- is already head of Saint Petersburg's Marinsky Theatre, bringing unprecedented change to the two theatres' management. 

He replaces Vladimir Urin, who led the Bolshoi for a decade, and who signed an open letter calling on all sides to end hostilities in Ukraine in February last year. 

Gergiev was fired as main conductor of the Munich Philharmonic for failing to denounce the Ukraine campaign and shunned by other Western institutions, where he had been a regular for years. 

He has since performed at home, going on tour only to China, with whom Moscow has sought closer ties. 

As he addressed the Bolshoi troupe Friday, he downplayed his status as a persona non-grata in Europe and said he wanted to focus on working in Russia. 

"Today, I am thinking about what to do in Russia. Not because we are not being invited anywhere -- quite the opposite: we recently were in China where we performed and opened a new hall in Beijing," he said. 

"But it is important for me and for us to work at home." 

Many Russian high-profile culture figures have left the country in protest of Moscow's offensive, with those who stayed facing strict censorship. 

The Russian government said it had appointed Gergiev by decree as General Director of the Bolshoi for a period of five years. 

The move came after rumours swirled in November Putin wanted to install Gergiev in the Bolshoi ahead of his expected re-election in March 2024, which would extend his long rule until 2030. 

- Propaganda concerts - 

Putin suggested integrating the management of the Bolshoi and Marinsky theatres in March last year, saying they were run this way before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. 

The Kremlin has often strived to bring back Russian imperial glory, slamming Vladimir Lenin's revolution, while also presiding over nostalgia for the Soviet era. 

But officials stressed Friday it was not a total merger, with the Bolshoi keeping its ballet director.  

Gergiev said the two theatres working together would present a "huge opportunity." 

"We can exchange performances, we can tour on the stages of both theatres," he told Bolshoi staff, according to Russian media. 

Gergiev has not made any public political statements since Putin sent troops into Ukraine.

But he has stood by Putin's policies for more than two decades and performed propaganda concerts in honour of Russian military victories in the past. 

In one of his most criticised moves, Gergiev conducted a concert in Syria's Palmyra ruins after Moscow's intervention in the country on the side of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

He also conducted a triumphant concert in Georgia's Tskhinvali region after the Russian invasion in 2008, just a few meters from a detention centre where Georgian civilians were being held.  

- 'Names vanished' -

Moscow said Urin, the Bolshoi's director since 2013, had stepped down voluntarily.

But suspicion over his future was raised after he was one of a number of cultural figures calling on "all sides" to stop combat in Ukraine. 

Urin also often spoke out in support of the Kremlin, including when it annexed Crimea the year after his appointment in 2014. 

Moscow's far-reaching crackdown on dissent has hugely affected the arts.

Urin earlier this autumn admitted to removing playwrights critical of the Ukraine campaign from repertoires.

"When some creators of plays spoke out very clearly about the special military operation then, in those cases, their names vanished from posters," he told government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta in September. 

He said the theatre was going through "not easy times." 

Earlier this year, the Bolshoi dropped a contemporary ballet about the life of Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev directed by acclaimed director Kirill Serebrennikov -- who has fled Russia and denounces the Ukraine campaign.

Urin had said that the ballet was dropped due to new legislation against spreading "propaganda of non-traditional values", as the play centres around a gay dancer.

The Bolshoi's top ballerina Olga Smirnova quit the theatre in protest over the Ukraine offensive last year.

bur/giv