Hi, everyone. Cow dead. Send milk. 

-MDBIT

The Holiday Formerly Known as Halloween

In the midst of a grave world-wide economic crisis shaking Moscow like a Yahtzee box, my greatest fear was still a lackluster Halloween. In some ways it came true, though I’ve taken the noose down out of the closet. A little bit of history: Halloween is traditionally a big freaking deal on the club scene, up there with New Year’s in terms of fireworks-and-glitter related fatalities. Call it a litmus test for how good things really are in Moscow.

Results came back mixed. The parties seemed fun and people dressed up, but none of them looked like the world was ending, which is the going standard for Halloween in Moscow. Club XII’s annual bash was full of people who cared enough to rent nice costumes, even if it meant taking out a loan. Thanks for giving a damn, guys.

“Freak International 3” also had a strong showing, despite being held at warehouse club Gaudi Arena, a long, cold marshrutka ride away from civilization. But that’s kind of cheating because candy ravers already dress like it’s Halloween and probably didn’t even realize it was a holiday.

Look! Zhenya's going as your bored girlfriend

Pretty much all the other big name clubs didn’t, ahem, Rai-se to the occasion. The party was there, but barely distinguishable from any other night. Those bitties who did come in costume looked like they were headed to SAE Theme Thursdays, an uninspired assortment of skank nurses, slutty brides and promiscuous policewomen we've seen before.

Kappa Theta Ikra

I know, America is bad, right? Gotta spank it

Labelfucker was supposed to have a good Halloween thing going on. In fact, so good that it was shut down by the police before midnight last year. At least, I think that’s what the wasted people streaming out seemed to be screaming about. When an overgrown schoolgirl with vomit on his chin barreled at me, I didn’t stick around to find out. Unfortunately this year Labelfucker held its party at the clinically depressed Justo Banya Douche. Might as well have sprayed it with Party-Be-Gone.

But if history has taught us anything, it’s that the spirit of Halloween can overcome anything, even a shitty venue. Clubs are just the container, man, what really matters is the people. Making Halloween costume pie takes equal parts creativity, enthusiasm and willingness to act a fool. Which brings me to the main point -- feis control goons, where are you when we need you? For pete’s sake, stop letting people in without real costumes. Four dudes should not be able to ride in one on hat they bought off a malnourished 17-year-old soldier for 100 rubles.

FAIL

Haha. Prokhodite

Nyet

Pass. And run for your life

Borderline. At least they didn't go blackface

Ooh. Tough call. I feel like someone is going to Hell for this, but they did take a concept and run with it

I don't care if she just spent too much time on the bed at Mesto Pod Solntsem, She looks rad, let her in

It's not like Moscow don’t know how to dress up. In fact, the scariest costumes of all weren’t seen on October 31 but a few days before at the Moscow Fashion Week closing party. The punch line is that there wasn't even a Halloween theme, but I guess you already got that.

Just tell me these people don't drink the blood of the living.

Photos: 44100.com, geometria.ru, labelfucker.ru, adensya.ru, mainpeople.ru

Der Untermost, or the Day the Shitty Techno Died

The global economic meltdown has claimed another subset of victims -- Moscow elitny clubgoers. At least that's according to the Telegraph, which reported of a half-empty Most. Even if it's not entirely true, when the golden club is letting in pasty British reporters, that's a sure sign times have changed.

Falling into conversation with one patron, an impeccably dressed man in his late thirties who introduced himself as the owner of another nightclub, I asked him where everybody was.

"They are sitting at home drinking cheap vodka and thinking about killing themselves," he replied.

In other words, doing what MDBIT does on Friday nights anyway. The reports of Moscow nightlife's death have been greatly exaggerated though. While the $32,000 VIP booth above the waterfall at Rai may be going at a slight discount, there's no shortage of people lining up for 800 ruble Long Islands at The Most, as these photos from October 3 contest.


What do you think: is this self-delusion or deserved confidence? Are they playing the fiddle while Moscow burns, or just trying to have fun after a £400 billion stock market dive?

Yaaaaaaaa! Kill it! Kill it!

To be honest, it kinda reminds me of the last days in Hitler's bunker. But if the world capital of excess goes on the dole, what are all of us parasitic nightlife bloggers going to do? Move to Istanbul and start ghostwriting college apps for rich kids? Waaaaaaa!

Photos: mainpeople.ru

It's a Very Zverev World

Everyone hearts Jocelyn Wildensteinian reality television star, singer and man-about-town Sergei Zverev. Broadly speaking, Russians hate and fear gays on the street, but love their celebrities camp as a row of tents, and so Zverev floats above homophobia, a shining silicone he-she. He even melted the heart of thugtastic Chechnyan leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who stated he finds the anthropoid creature "companionable" and gave him a 100 thousand euro watch. (Read all about it the GQ interview between Kadyrov and...Ksenia Sobchak, proof that reality is much stranger than fiction.)


You read so much about Zverev's extracurricular pursuits, like recieving wristwatches from scary tyrants, that you may have forgotten his original calling – male hairdresser. September saw the grand opening of his Celebrity beauty salon, which, given the popularity of the tranny aesthetic among biological women in Moscow, will likely do quite well. I except to see an army of Zverev lookalikes take over the world just before Armageddon.


To celebrate the opening, here's MDBIT's tribute to the many looks of Sergei Zverev, because no one embodies the spirit of retarded fabulousness better than him. Good night, and God bless.


Celebrity, 10 Nikolskaya Ulitsa, Metro: Lubyanka, Tel. 721-3524

Photos: mainpeople.ru, blesk.ru, the deep recesses of the Internets

Freakonomics, or In Defense of Fair Trade

It occured to me recently that the Moscow bar scene is a perfect example of "race to the bottom," a trade theory usually applied to sweatshops. That is to say, competition between countries (the women attending the bar) over attracting investment (male attention) leads to the reduction of regulations (standards of social conduct). Ultimately, it is those who abandon all vestiges of dignity who survive.

This is not an uncommon scenario: You rock up to the bar with Lena and Katya from work and predictably, there are about 3 eligible bachelors in the place.

Sasha, Sasha and...Sasha

The female-male ratio standing at 25-1, the air is thick with tension. Women start nervously preening and bending their bodies with unnatural rigidity to display their sexual organs. Conditions are bad, but they're about to get much worse.

Enter topless go-go dancers, the match to the gasoline. When these lithe animals start shaking their ta-tas on the bar, you lean over to Katya and Lena to suggest "fuck this place, let's get the fuck out of here" only to find that they have taken to the dance floor. To keep up with the go-go dancers, they are doing some sort of freaky deaky kick dance.


When it becomes clear that the naked chicks are still recieving far more attention, rather than give up, Lena and Katya become more and more determined. By the time you finally drag them off of each other, they're already... doing THAT.


Throughout all of this, Dima continues calmly smoking his kalyan, bored, trying to watch football on the plasma screen.


The point is that in this economic model, no one wins: not the desparate chicks lezzing out on the dance floor, not the guys who have become dizzy and nauseated of women as if they ate too much sugar, and certainly not the MDBITs who go home to write about it in their blogs. However, with a little solidarity, some grassroots organizing, it can be overcome. Si se puede!


Photos: mainpeople.ru

Bright Lights, Big Moscow

It’s snowing hard in Paparazzi Bar, the heir apparent to Mix. Good, because scruffy Moscow club kids were lacking in recreational options beyond alcohol and cough medicine. The rich and fabulous can get yayed up ten ways from Sunday at their Dyagilevs and their Rais, but what about the little people? Can’t they get theirs?

"OMG, I'm falling in a k-hole"

Drug proliferation is the perhaps the greatest testament to the existence of a Russian middle class, you know, that great void between Roman Abramovich and the pensioners farming beets in permafrost with plastic McDonalds forks. If the unwashed hipster masses can afford narcotics and nice places with chairs and doors in which to do them, then things might not be so bad after all.

The nods

Bono and Naomi Campbell love Paparazzi Bar

This kid sold drugs in my junior high PE class

Kurt Cobainov

Don't forget to hydrate!

Return of Abnormal Circus! Kids...don't do drugs

“OMG, I love everyone!!”

"Shaddup, you don't know meeeee"

Paparazzi Bar, 3/4 Pyatnitskaya Ul., Bldg. 1, Metro: Tretyakovskaya, Tel. 953-1620

Photos: lookatme.ru

Rai'd or Die

Sexton was founded by feared Soviet motorcycle gang the Night Wolves in the mid-nineties. Ten years and change later, it continues to party on, Wayne. Who'd have guessed the hog & hiefers lifestyle, with its binge drinking, violent beatings, down-for-whatever chicks and white pride, would resonate so well in Russia? Just doesn't add up.


At any rate, three cheers! Sexton is a welcome breath of stale beer from the tired elitny club scene. No where else can you breeze through feis kontrol in a pit-stained Kiss t-shirt -- unless it's Simachev Bar or Solyanka and you are firmly, visibly, unequivocally steeped in irony.


Normally, biker bars are a good place to get your head bashed in non-ironically. But now that the Night Wolves are upstanding middle-aged Putinites, there's much less chance of gang rape, much more chance of fun.

Viva la Lucha Libre!

Predictably, Rai saw how much fun Sexton was having with biker kultur and wanted in on the action. From the looks of their 2,000 euro Ducatti jackets and gleaming D&G belt buckles, it seems something was lost in translation.

It's not the size of your bike, it's how many Rai hoodrats you can fit on it.

"The South will Rai'se again!"

Sexton, 110 Nizhniye Mnevniki, Metro: Oktyabrskoye Pole, Tel. 8 926 4097149

Photos: geometria.ru, mainpeople.ru

Step Back from the Light

Young man, do yourself a favor and don’t attempt Soho Rooms. I mean, you won’t get in anyway and, moreover, they’ll publicly humiliate you at the door for having the gall to try to breach Moscow’s magical elitny club scene in A+F. (What the fuck?! This is the biggest day of your life and you’re wearing army print cargo shorts!)

"Come towards the legggggs"

But, on the freak chance that you do speak the correct incantation to Pasha Feis Kontrol, before rushing forward towards secrets kept since the dawn of time, ask yourself, “What good will it do for my life?”

Gurgle gurgle

What lies beyond: Hyper-sexualized nymphs rolling on top each other. Supermodels eating up every awkward drunk thing you day like it’s the Holodomor famine. Zero competition by other menfolk.

Is this real life? Have you finally arrived at a place where beautiful women appreciate your natural worth and charm, and reward it with sexual favors in the bathroom? Or is it an alien race, punishing the hubris of man?

"Auggh she's mind-melding!"

Some people’s faces melt off on contact with Soho Rooms, like Raiders of the Lost Ark. Those are the lucky ones. The rest have to go on living knowing that a place like this exists in the world and they can’t live there.

Neenu Neenu

Having to live among uppity, pear-shaped women with memories of Soho Room still fresh in the mind, they eventually drives awls into their own eyes.

You flew too close to the sun, killa.

Soho Rooms, 12 Savvinskaya Naberezhnaya, Metro: Sportivnaya, Tel. 988-7474, sohorooms.com

Photos: mainpeople.ru

Justo Banya Death

Sauna-turned-apathetic nightclub Justo Banya Dush seems to have fallen in with wrong crowd in the past year. That is to say, no crowd at all. After a mega-impressive opening, Justo rested on its laurels as one of the самый закрытый (most closed-est) clubs in Moscow, never deigning to do the one thing it was supposed to do -- bring the party. Sad, but we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Gave it enough rope to hang itself with

We went out of our way to find its silly unmarked door. We stood in the cold when they couldn't find our name on the list. We paid 3,000 rubles for tables in an empty club. We made excuses to our friends for Justo's failure to perform. We all believed what we wanted to believe -- that it was the harbinger of new generation of Moscow clubs, cool not corny, where hoodies reigned supreme and hoochies were kicked to the curb.

Head tattoos? Really? As Chris Rock said, you can drive a car with your feet, that doesn't mean it should be done! (Also, you can't catch a crackhead in a footrace)

But alas, shuttered behind a steel door, the Great Hip Hope has turned into a haunt for pasty freaksi. Even TimeOut, a cheerleader for Moscow's elitny club scene, described the vibe at Justo as "melancholy." A great place for, like, wristcutters meetings.

"Down the road, NOT across the street, guys"

So these are photos from a White Trash For Cash party night at Justo. Now ask yourself, would you rather be drinking here, or in Bittsevsky Park, killing grounds of the Bittsevsky maniac? At least the latter don't have men in formal shorts.

"Rater, cruer worrd!" -- Justo

Justo Banya Dush, 3 Teatralny Proyezd, Metro: Teatralnaya, Tel. 625-6836

Photos: adensya.ru, mainpeople.ru

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Every once and a while there comes a club that humanity is so much gayer for. This time it’s Famous, from the promoters who did yesteryear hotspot First. It was known for being a) opposite the Kremlin and b) really douchey.

Gaymous

I like to think that Russian nightlife is moving in the right direction – towards democracy and good fashion sense, albeit following a different beat (shitty techno). But with developments like these, it seems that's just a bedtime story told to little bloggers.

There are reasons Moscow clubs have fire problems

Questions abound. How did a club this mid-'90s cheesy survive into the 21st century? Were we lulled into a false sense of security by a string of respectable openings? Is this our punishment for getting too cocky?

While positioning itself as elitny megaclub, Famous lacks the self-introspect and playfulness of Rai and Dyagilev which could push it over the brink to pure camp pleasure. So it’ll just carry on being fascistically exclusive, pointlessly expensive, criminally tasteless and ultimately joyless -- except for, I guess, 1990s club nostalgists.

Klaatu Barata Nikto, man

80s cokehead power couple -- this is complete atavism!

Sadly, he is in her league at Famous

It's Teeeeeeeeeeam Date Rape

As the first big club to open in the Medvedev era, Famous could be a harbinger of bad things to come. Perhaps under that friendly liberalist chipmunk façade, he's an even badder bitch than Putin.

Oh no! Make way for Crazy M

Every cloud has a silver lining, I guess, as the Famous photos have a little something to increase your chances for a successful clubbing experience. Listen up: The wiseguy with the cigar is Alexei Gorobiy, who started the wildly decadent Zima/Leto/Osen franchise. (Read more about him in this indispensible Vanity Fair piece.) And the one doing the devil fingers is the fabled Pasha Feis Kontrol. By day he's a dentist who lives with his mother (unsubstaniated rumor I chose to spread as fact). By night he wields the God-given authority to deeeee-ny your ass. Combined, these two men have the absolute power to make or break your night, so tread carefully. The guy in the middle, disregard.

"You scuffed my Puma! You'll never club in this town again!!!"

Famous, 15 Rochdelskaya Ulitsa, Metro: Krasnopresnenskaya, Tel. 255-5354

Photos: mainpeople.ru

Kheppi Byerthday, Mr. Simachev

The Moscow club scene suffers from an alarming infant mortality rate. Remember Versus? Neither do we. After a gradiose opening last September, it quickly faded into relative obscurity. Even my mother could get into Versus now. If the right backs aren’t scratched, bureaucratic brouhahas over liquor licenses, building permits, pool permits, etc. can easily suffocate a baby club . And “accidental” fires (RIP Dyagilev), the preferred means of solving shareholder disputes, claim an unsettling number of victims.

Burn, baby, burn

With this depressing backdrop, cheers to club survivor Denis Simachev Bar, which celebrated its 1st birthday in May. Maybe it’s the new photographer I’m working with, but the bar also seems to have morphed into a happening place you’d actually want to be in. Back when it opened it was the target of severe anathema from, uh, me for using a hipster disaffected veneer to hide a terminally New Russian heart. That is to say, monstrous feis kontrol, overpriced cocktails and golden youth club kids hiding under cardigans. And above all, Denis Simachev’s facial hair is a bit too Megans Law for my taste.

Hide the kids

So it's hard to place why Denis Simachev Bar seems so appealing these days. The photos from the birthday party verify that the place is still very small and very congested, like partying in an ironic shoebox.

Also, what kind of Russian club doesn't have this waiting to slice you open on the dance floor with her razor-sharp pelvic bone. (Sounds of people across the world booking flights to Moscow.) Boring.


I guess its only real acheivement (but one that can by no means be denigrated) is they have hot Russian men, a mythological species. And not just one, but several. I've been at this game for a long time and have yet to see more than two attractive men in the same club. Once, it seemed true, but there was just a mirror in the room.

And if you think that's unusual, get this: They also managed to snag a lesbian for indie street cred. Not a Girl Gone Wild (those are falling out of trees in Moscow), but a real Sapphic powerhouse.

Finally, the man on the left is a Grade A asshat for not letting me in with my cupcake print rainboots. But be nice to him because he mans the door at Simachev Bar.

Photos: uaixblog.com, mainpeople.ru, mixtura.org

Denis Simachev Bar, 12 Stoleshnikov Per., Metro: Teatralnaya, Tel. 629-8085

If You Bring Shoes, They Will Come

So Marc Jacobs visited his boutique on Petrovka for 45 minutes.

In the words of Adam Sandler, "Whoopity-doooooooooooooooooo."

Who cares about the fey American designer and his beautiful, beautiful shoes. What’s really important here are the colorful human fauna an event like this brings out of the woodwork. And not just the skeezy hipster fashionistas! Also the ones who are married to billionaires and lezz out on MTV and stuff. If you can't get excited about this, the world doesn't hold much more for you.

Let’s have a look.

Whoa, a rare live sighting of Darya Zhukova and Polina Deripaska. These bitties landed Forbes’s second and first richest Russians, respectively. Curious that they still shop at Zara.

Tatu’s Julia Volkova: At least she wore underwear. Note the interestingly hardcore shin tattoo. Does she work at a junkyard?

The real stars of the show were the slim princes, those slips of gay men with a gleam in their eyes and a glass of champagne in their hands.

Danila cut his hair! How cute is he with his little flourecsent tummy showing

Eerily Dorian Grey-ish MTV Russia VJ Vlad Lisovets

Designer Dima Loginov, who looks like a Kraftwerk Michael Ian Black

Vogue's Most Fashionable DJ (whoops, I mean Vogue Russia) in his element. As you can see indoor sunglasses are in, in, in, my friend!

Marc Jacobs was excited about it all as we were

Who let the freaksi in?

Mwah mwah! Air kiss

On a related note, all it takes to win my heart are size 38 Marc Jacobs flats. What size? 38!

Photos: mixtura.org, mainpeople.ru

Marc Jacobs, 16 Petrovka Ulitsa, Metro: Kuznetsky Most, Tel. 624-2023

One Night in Moscow

Big ups to Paris Hilton, who appears to have made Moscow her second home. She was just in town last month to visit roosky BFF Kiira Plastinina, the heinously rich teen-cum-heinous fashion designer. (I wonder what that last sentence will do for my Google hits…) This week Paris came back with that guy from Good Charlotte to promote her sexy new fragrance Can-Can Cocktail. (Again...)

Paris and Kiira ride the short bus the elevator at Yevropeisky shopping mall

Most Western stars are far too prudent to venture east of Cannes, and with good reason. A bad night in France ends with herpes and a sugar hangover, not missing organs and a ditch in Butovo*. Also, many customer service mainstays we take for granted in the West have not yet reached the former Soviet Union. Like human rights. And TiVo.

But I guess some people have a taste for extreme tourism. And you better believe Paris is getting real paid every time she shows her face in these parts - $1 million a night, if you read the Russian tabloids. Ow, ow! For that money, few people would kick Moscow out of bed for eating crackers. Certainly not me, with Long Island Ice Tea prices at 500 rubles and rising.

Paris about to get feised at her own party

Paris was last spotted at Wall Street Bar, the new and thoroughly weird conflation of all things English speaking. In the neo-modest tradition started by The MOST, it is touting itself as a not entirely depraved place for serious businessmen to meet other serious businessmen and stupidly attractive women. Seriously, looking at the girls in these photos, Paris Hilton comes off as about a 7 and me a feral gypsy child.

The Russian PH knockoff -- plastic smells weird, causes headaches

Wall Street Bar frequenters work hard and play hard. And get paid hard and pay hard (450 rubles for a mojito). There’s Bloomberg TV on the plasma screen cuz the Asian markets open at 3 am. Buy! Sell! Buy! Jackpot!

Checkin' her stocks

The ol’ co-opting-a-famous-name-sans-any-connection trick reminds of a scam language school Garvard Inglish which operated in Moscow in the early naughties. They flew in hordes of teachers from the First World then kept them as indentured servants in Russia, raking all the dough without paying the help. I knew some of these forgotten victims -- Americans and Brits who came with a dream to see the world and exploit innate language skills rather than get a real job. They were left destitute and malnourished, without enough money to cover the rounds at Silver’s. Since the expat.ru servers crashed, there’s no one left bearing witness to this atrocity but MDBIT.

But anyway, unlike that naughty Garvard, we trust Wall Street will provide refreshing beverages and invaluable business connections.

*Moscow suburb you never want to end up in. May as well be Afghanistan, because there’s no sushi and kalyan.

Wall Street Bar, 9/1 Volkhonka Ulitsa, Metro: Kropotkinskaya, Tel. 7(495) 916-5731

Photos: Paparazzi.ru, elite.ru

Twipster 'Do-'Do

Mysteries of Russian indie steez revealed! Twipster (Third World Hipster) internet portal Look at Me now has step-by-step instructional videos on how to do your hair like a Moscow club kid. Featured are the vaguely Latin "Idalgo", the ironic '90s throwback "Luke Perry" and the "Decembrist," named after revolutionaries who tried to overthrow the tsar and were exiled to Siberia. History remembers both their revolting and their revolting hair. Noticeably absent from this hair collection is the mythological mullet. Perhaps it was all just a bad dream?

Eagle-eye readers will recognize this крутой stylist from a previous episode of MDBIT.

That's right, it's the Karl Lagerfeld impersonator from last summer's Thriller party! Thanks for playing.

Photos: lookatme.ru

Firsto de Mayo

Once upon a time, Oleg Gazmanov was the lone ranger waxing nostalgic about the CCCP. Senile as he is, he kinda has a point. Some of my favorite people were born in the Soviet Union (then fled immediately). If you filter out all the bad shit, you come up with a pretty neat set of things: chess, cosmonauts, torpedos, spies, “big science” (our favorite, too). We’d add that ambisexual Mickey Mouse knock-off Cheburashka and those medical bars for kids made of dehydrogenated cow blood to the list, as well.

The original O.G.

Nowadays, when journalists are accidentally getting deaded and history textbooks are giving a more patriotic look at the past (Stalin was a great micromanager), nationalism is just the safest hand to play, even on the club scene. Opera’s Pervomaika (1st of May) party resurrected that old proletariat spirit, and showed the world that a monstrous regime is a pretty sexy beast when it lets its hair down.

Now most Opera frequenters were born in the Yeltsin era, not the Evil Empire. Having never been forced to endure long queues and pointlessly circuituous beauracracy for basic supplies (unless you consider sushi and kalyan basic supplies, in which case every weekend at Etazh), they have a somewhat glamorized version of the not too distant past. It's less about Lenin and Marx, more about free vodka shots and STDs.

I survived 80 years of oppression and all I got was these stupid rigger grandkids?

Keeping it really real: gulag chic

Surely the Soviet Union wasn't this bad

If you want a vision of the Moscow future, it's a stiletto stamping on a human face. Forever.

Photos: geometria.ru