Plisetskaya in 2013, located in Moscow's central theater district, near the Bolshoi Theatre. Conductor and artistic director Valery Gergiev, who was a close friend of Plisetskya, gave a concert in Moscow on 18 November 2015, dedicated to her memory. On 20 November 2015, the government of Russia named a square in her honor in central Moscow, on Ulitsa Bolshaya Dmitrovka, near the Bolshoi Theatre. A bronze plaque affixed at the square included an engraving: "Maya Plisetskaya Square is named after the outstanding Russian ballerina. Opened 20 November 2015." In St. Petersburg, the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra paid homage to Plisetskaya's memory with a concert on 27 December 2015. It was conducted by Valery Gergiev and included a performance with ballet dancer Diana Vishneva. The Mariinsky Ballet later performed a four-program "Tribute of Maya Plisetskaya" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in February 2016. The Bolshoi Theater performed a concert in memory of Plisetskaya at the London Coliseum on 6 March 2016. A monument to Maya Plisetskaya was unveiled in the center of Moscow, on Bolshaya Dmitrovka, in the square named after her. The opening took place on 20 November 2016, the date of her birth, and shows her in a pose from Carmen. Describing the monument, one observer commented about sculpturist Viktor Mitroshin and the statue's design: Personal life Career friendships Plisetskaya's tour manager, Maxim Gershunoff, who also helped promote the Soviet/American Cultural Exchange Program, describes her as "not only a great artist, but also very realistic and earthy ... with a very open and honest outlook on life". During Plisetskaya's tours abroad, she became friends with a number of other theater and music artists, including composer and pianist Leonard Bernstein, with whom she remained friends until his death. Pianist Arthur Rubinstein, also a friend, was able to converse with her in Russian. She visited him after his concert performance in Russia. Novelist John Steinbeck, while at their home in Moscow, listened to her stories of the hardship of becoming a ballerina, and told her that the backstage side of ballet could make for a "most interesting novel". In 1962, the Bolshoi was invited to perform at the White House by president John F. Kennedy, and Plisetskaya recalled that first lady Jacqueline Kennedy greeted her by saying "You're just like Anna Karenina." While in France in 1965, Plisetskaya was invited to the home of Russian artist Marc Chagall and his