Treating Objects Like Women

Proof that New Russian chicks are hatched in a lab! Mooqla, the design partnership of Polina Voloshina and Artem Lebedev, makes silicone dyevushki that retail for $400-$450 apiece.


As we always suspected, the Barbies are unwell. The company's website supplies the dolls with a chilling back story, which is that they're disturbed teenagers, ages 14 to 16, held prisoner at a mysterious elite boarding school. One girl slits her veins to show there's blue blood running through, one lops off a bird's head with cuticle scissors and yet another, in a "Mean Girls" reprisal of the famous Tatiana Tolstaya story, goes batshit after friends send her letters from a fake admirer. That's crazy Sonya below. Great acessories, though.


Photos: mooqla.com, fashiontime.ru

It's Me, Arkady!

In the Second World, you can go far with a little gumption, and a lot of PR. There’s only one name most Muscovites can attach to food, the name of a man with his finger in every pie of the restaurant industry: Arkady Novikov. At a Novikov restaurant, the food is, well, it’s not about the food. He knows that restaurant-goers are only in it for the spectacle. Just make sure the place has meat, potatoes, sushi and vodka, then spend the rest of the money on design.

G’damn, he’s prolific! Probably 25% of the restaurants in the city have the Novikov name attached to them. He caters to the entire spectrum of the Moscow social hierarchy, starting with Yolki-Polki for the absolute bottom feeders to places like Tsarskaya Okhota and Veranda u Dachi, which are out of the reach of the plebes. (No, really! The Metro doesn’t run out to Rublevo-Uspenskoye Shosse.) But, the man is best known for in-town haunts that serve rabbit food to glamorous society bitches -- Vesna, Aist, Galereya, Vogue Café and Next Door. Last month, he coughed up another one of its ilk: GQ Bar, a terribly expensive restaurant-bar linked conceptually (and, to a lesser degree, financially) to the men’s style magazine.


The March 29 opening party saw a couple intriguing individuals from the world of serious things: Pavel Astakhov (Moscow defence lawyer, represented accused spy Edward Pope) and dapper Edward Limonov, founder of the National Bolshevik Party. Even dissidents get thirsty for fashion.



These people are saggy. Let’s go back to the golden youth. Ah…

Photos: elite.ru, room.su

Spring Breeeeak!

"Bleep you, world! No one gets down like Russians get down!" Compared to the fanny-packed, opinionated "Ugly American," the travelling Russian is loads more fun, yet just as scary for the uninitiated. Wherever he goes, he brings the whole tusovka with him. He will break your rib hugging too hard.

Here's 44100's photos from the Club Paradise Tour, a Russian-run music festival that drew clubbers and DJs from the brown muck of springtime Moscow for fun under the Egyptian sun at the beginning of March. After Turkey, Egypt is the most popular destination for Russian tourists on account of being close by, cheap and full of other Russians at play. Vice nailed the phenomenon:

If you want to meet Russians where they really party, your best bet is to see them on vacation in Egypt.

Since Russians are openly prejudiced against both dark-skinned people and each other, and since they view vacations as a time to drink and fuck at levels that make even their wildest weekends at home seem like Christian retreats, we recommend Egypt as the ideal way to mainline concentrated Russianness.

Photos: 44100.com