The Friksi Come Out at Night

Being a freakazoid is tough goings in Moscow, where not wearing the right seasonal stockings is enough to put a babushka's panties in a firm knot. Drinking vodka at 4 p.m., demanding exact change, answering your cellphone during dinner/symphonies/sex -- all socially acceptable. But exposing your legs before June 1? You degenerate.

Luckily, Moscow's subaltern experimental hipsters have a voice in photographer/party orgainzer/super attractive man Ja'Bagh Kahgado, who is coming out with a CK1-y photo book, Moskva Raw, of all the skinny tatooed people with weird hair you'll find perculating in the mix at the city's underground clubs (all three of them). His company Brainstorm Management throws/helps throw/threw Idle Conversation, which kickstarted, love it or hate it, the Novy Rave movement in Moscow (RIP); New Wave Fridays, where it was finally cool to be gay, or at least dress like it; and Labelfucker, which makes homesick expats feel less bad about a terrible life decision (Moscow); as well as bangin' secret parties that weed out all of the unattractive freaks and leave just the freak babes. Once, a few years ago, I got into one, but it was definitely an accident.


This last photo of Ja'Bagh's, it's not from the book, but enjoy anyway.

Bumping caviar -- something we've all wanted to do for a long time.

Photos: Brainstorm Management

I Can Has Art?

Who said that blogging doesn't get you anywhere? In August, window blinds magnate, art collector and avid LiveJournalist Igor Markin opened a populist gallery in downtown Moscow. Art4.ru has late hours, furniture to lounge in and pretty girls on staff instead of ancient crones. People place stickers next to the pieces they like best.

Ich bin ein freewheeling arty playboy millionaire!

Markin has taste for noncomformist art, which means that Art4.ru is the kind of place you’re likely to find Oleg Kulik waving his naked butt in people’s faces. But he’s also a patriot: Art4.ru recently hosted a contest for a Yelstin monument, mostly to stop the much loathed Tsereteli, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s pet favorite, from doing it. (Markin has also set up a Fund for Dismantling Monuments created by Zurab Tsereteli.)


The Internet portal of Art4.ru is a great way to track where free champagne will be, and what's going on in the greater art world as it pertains to Russia. For instance "Moscopolis," an exhibit of Russian artists' representations of Moscow running at the Louis Vuitton space in Paris until Dec 31.

Cardboard Mausoleum

From a brilliant series: In Moscow of the Future, the Russian government is housed in the Malevich Building, a black monolith.

The Big Russian Soul is physically located! We always suspected this would happen eventually. It's a Huge, Flying Ball of Russian Spirituality (2416), which hovers above the city.

Had a suspicion about this as well. But where are all the Shokolodnitsas?

Photos: art4.ru

Art4.ru, 4 Khlynovsky Tupik, Metro: Arbatskaya, Tel. 660-1158

Red or Dead

In a land of legendarily beautiful women, Slavic male beauty is unsung, to say the least. A lifelong male figure skating fan, I had been duped into thinking I'd be arriving to a land of Ilya Kuliks, but instead it's Evgeny Plushchenko after freaky Evgeny Plushchenko. So it makes sense that Russia's top male model is a red-haired Skeletor named Danila Polyakov.

Long auburn hair, neon white skin, Karen Carpenter thin — a biological aberration, Danila. Only 300 years ago, he'd have been put to death by frenzied hordes of villagers with torches. Once he sidled on me in Five Star and I nearly choked on my club sandwich. Fashion photographers have a habit of dressing him up like a girl on account of his flowing mane, but he's reportedly not gay, despite abounding photos like this:


And videos like this:

He's not just Russia's top male model, he's Russia's only male model. Prolific internationally in his younger days, Danila is now the go-to guy for anything Russian fashion related — Afisha spreads, Simachev shows, even contemporary art.

Let the Ginger Go!

That's from the mixed media series "Action Half-Life" by Russian art collective AES+F Group (artists Tatiana Azamarzova, Lev Evzovich and Evgeny Svyatsky plus glossy photographer Vladimir Fridkes). They celebrated 20 years together with a retrospective that opened in the secret Triumph Gallery on July 19. It featured a new project "Othello," all about a black man trying to molest a blonde. Oh my.


Before you log off, don't forget to decorate your instant messenger with Danila Polyakov avatars.



And join the Danila Polyakov livejournal community. And buy from his fashion line, 100% Vanilla, modeled by the world's whitest man below. His sports shirts are on sale at the boutique Chic Blesk Krasota/Emperor Moth starting July 26.


And here's some more hot Danila Polyakov action ganked from the deep recesses of the internet.


Triumph, 40 Novokuznetskaya Ul., Metro: Novokuznetskaya, Tel. Its a Secret
Emperor Moth, 16 Mal. Bronnya Ul., Metro: Pushkinskaya, Tel. 290-3888

Photos: mainpeople.ru, aes-group.org, stormmodels.com

Dance Dance Revolution

Kronstadt is creepy. The island is located a rickety 30-minute bus ride away from St. Petersburg and is best-known for being the site of a bloody sailor's rebellion against the Bolsheviks called, in fact, the Kronstadt Rebellion. Today, Kronstadt hangs in an eerie, Stephen King-movie state of neglect, despite being inhabited by 45,000 people. Like everyone just dropped what they were doing, and walked away. Multiple times. Prisons, churches, arsenals — all falling apart. Once, some shifty townies broke us into an abandoned morgue, and there were still scalpels on the autopsy table, and body parts in jars of formaldehyde. Yoohoo, you forgot your pickles!


My artist friend Lara lived in a house there in order to take full advantage of Kronstadt's creepiness. Her summer culminated in a final art installation with girls hanging in white cocoons and a bald man playing the cello. For reals, it was so creepy.


The whole upside to Kronstadt's Andrei Tarkovskian, post-apocalyptic barrenness is that you can occupy whatever space you want, without anyone yelling at you. Even a fort. Fortdance is an annual open-air summer dance festival held in the cracked and peeling Fort Alexander, commissioned in 1845 by Tsar Nikolai. It never saw battle while operant and had a brief stint as a plague laboratory at the end of 19th century. During that time, barely anyone was let in, and the people who did had to pass through a special "Microbe" tunnel. Now it's rented out for parties, like teeth-grinding, pacifier-sucking Fortdance.

Dancing? In a fort?! Let me just get my spaceship.

I was going to post lots of photos from the excitement last weekend, because honestly Geometria dedicated hundreds of pages to Fortdance. But they all look the same. Like this:

Writing captions for photos sucks, but everyone fucking loves Vice so I'll do a few.

Kronstadt's rich naval tradition.

You write it.

A modern Russian club has a fairly good chance of caving in at any second. Fortdance ups that thrill factor mega.

Walking out into the blinding post-club sun sucks. Especially when its only 3 AM and now you have to swim home.

Photos: Geometria.ru

Moscow: Canned!

Grab a can, young man. Graffiti artists convened at Luzhniki Stadium at the end of June for spray-off "Moscow 2057." The theme was “My Moscow;” crews had five hours or so to come up with a design that expressed how the felt about the city they’ll inherit in 50 years.

Bracketing the ominous have-fun-or-else influence and nationalism of the Department of Family and Youth Policy of the City of Moscow, it was good, innocent fun for the whole family. Also it validated something I realized when they started selling spray cans at indie bookstore Respublica: being “street” has grown in currency.


The event was co-sponsored x-treme sports store Nye-Olympiiskiye Igry and new street art magazine Iron Curtain. Expect big things from this publication: Their marketing campaign is aimed at the hordes of restless youth all over Russia with a penchant for petty vandalism. Better that hoods in St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Ufa and Samara are expending the energy creatively than, say, on beating half-Mexicans.


Visual Artifacts shows that, against all odds, there’s actually a growing set of funny and subversive stencil artists and taggers in Moscow.


Aw, cute. I spend most of the day walking around blinded by bloodlust, then she goes and does something like this and I think, we’re going to be OK, me and Moscow.

Photos: ironcurtain.ru, www.visualartifacts.ru

More Like Coolskaya

UPDATE: Kurskaya — gMapped! Click on it.


Moscow suffers from a marked lack of neighborhoods of consolidated coolness. Or neighborhoods, full stop. Due to high business turnover and lack of zoning, your favorite spots are far apart, which would make nightlife unmanageable if not for a functional Caucasian gypsy cab network. But you never know which one of those trips will end up with you in an icy ditch in Butovo.


All this makes you wax nostalgic for life back home, where hipsters are happy in their own segregated ghettos — Williamsburg, the Mission District and 3rd through 5th streets in Davis. But as always, if you squint real hard, you can see what you want in Moscow. Over the course of 2006, the industrial shantytown around Kurskaya train station transformed into the city’s nearest approximation of a ‘hood.

Here’s burgeoning Kurskaya, in no particular order:

Ikra (8 Kazakova Ul.): What a quality of life increase! Ikra has quality indie acts, and framed fur on the walls. I have my name misspelled on a club card. Katie once had a Puzzywizard cocktail mixed by their German intern, who for four months tried hard to awaken her sexuality. But he really underestimated her vaginal laziness.


Winzavod (1/6 4th Syromyatnichesky Per.) — It was the introduction of this art complex in fall 2006 that really pulled the neighborhood together. Moscow’s Chelsea on the premises of one decrepit wine factory, Winzavod is composed of several exhibition halls, studios and galleries, of which Guelman is the most notable, if only for having once hosted portraits of entwined Putin and Osama nudes. Dmitry Vrubel’s piss-take “2007” is on now.

Cara & Co. — Is a new addition to WinZavod. A “concept store” headed by Russian-Australian re-pat Rozalia Kamenev, Cara & Co. is accelerating the gentrification of wild Kurskaya with sensible, imported clothing that's light years more fashionable than anything else in Moscow.

Gazgolder (6 Nizhny Susalny Per.): The original dope underground club that no one could find, much less get into. That’s the way they keep it looking like a very, very well-filtered house party. As of mid-2007 Gazgolder still has enough friends, thanks.

Gazgallery (5 Nizhny Susalny Per.): Part of the Gazgolder enterprise, this club/gallery is located around the corner in a airplane hangar-sized old factory, which is much easier to lie your way into. Most people don’t understand the distinction and spend the entire night thinking Gazgallery is Gazgolder, despite the 1,000-plus crowd. But I was young; I wanted to believe.



Forkforeva Flea Market (5/9 Nizhny Susalny Per.) — Generally speaking, second-hand treasures get no respect in Moscow — “Vintage 1986 high-tops? Are you a fucking peasant?” — but some people are learning to appreciate the value of a good bargain. Such as a George Benson vinyl where his mustache is scratched off (455 rubles). It’s also a virtual flea market — they post photos of what’s up for grabs on their website, you press “buy” and a courier brings it to you.

+7095.Art (5a Nizhny Susalny Per.) — That’s the Moscow area code, bitch! With art attached. Russian fashion labels Chic Blesk Krasota and Emperor Moth have their pinkies in this studio-gallery, which means whatever they throw pulls in the Very Cool Kids. Like Danila Polyakov. Who’s Danila Polyakov? All in good time.



Photos: mixtura.org, gazgolder.com, gazgall.ru, forkforever.com