I first came to Russia because of the culture, literature and music... and my interest in the 19th-century revolutionary spirit of Herzen, Bakunin and Kropotkin. Russia is a wonderful place to bring new clowns because Russians give back a wonderful response.
I've taken clowns into the war in Bosnia, the refugee camps of Kosovo, and none of those are any more important than clowning in a subway or an elevator or just walking down the street.