Dyagilev Self-Immolates!

Contrary to popular reports, I was not playing the fiddle while Dyagilev burned, nor did I have any hand in it. I am not even in the country anymore, an issue I will address at a later date when there are not nightclubs to eulogize. At noon on February 6, Interfax reported that Dyagilev, the city’s legendary elitny mega-club in historical Hermitage Garden, the one that sadistically split up groups of friends between the club and the showers, the one that told supermodel Natalia Vodianova to home and change at the door (she did), was en fuego and not in the Corona-sponsored Spring Break sense. In the end, they managed to evacuate Anka and all the acrobats, giraffes and midgets in ass-less chaps from the premises, but Dyaga itself shuffled off this mortal coil. (No, actually, the fire was started by welders doing set decorations during the day.) Nightlife photography website Geometria.ru responded by immediately posting images of the smoldering club on its society photos page. Klass.

Yet many had long expected the demise of this particular nightclub. At two years old, it was a toothless crone in a city that continually defects to the fresher, hotter and more fascistically exclusive. On the down-for-anything front, Rai had it pwned, and new oligarch clubhouse The MOST had siphoned away all the truly sophisticated beauties looking for husbandry. Which meant that all Dyagilev really had left going for it were obscure theme parties, impressive silicone artistry and carnival hoochies. In light of these physical facts, it’s not hard to believe any number of conspiracy theories. Did Sinisha Lazarevich torch his own place for insurance money? Or had the nightclub sensed its own demise and courageously choose to go out in a blaze of glory rather than jump the shark? Or did someone just leave the fire torch on? In that case, Dyagilev died as it lived -- fabulously retardedly.

History will remember Dyagilev for raising the bar for human humiliation with $40,000 tables and people with the surname Feis Kontrol posted at the door. Katie's panties will remember Dyagilev for being ditched in its bathroom at the behest of a minigarch. We'll all remember Dyagilev for learning us good what it means not to believe in tears.



Photos: kommersant.ru, 44100.com, geometria.ru

Rashn for Dummies

What are the kids saying these days? Free weekly Bolshoi Gorod published a double plus good lexicon of newspeak in Moscow’s dangerously jaded fashion community. Can’t say I’ve heard many of these neologisms in the wild, but then again this is a rarefied crowd we’re talking about. Below are MDBIT’s official summary translations.

Блядопровод — Blyadoprovod
Literally “ho pipeline,” in the oil & gas sense. Used to refer to fashionable Moscow establishments frequented by professional women looking to pick-up johns.

Вертушка — Vertushka
A Vertu cellphone. Also the name of an old Soviet phone network system connecting government lines.

Деревня — Derevnya
Literally “the village,” referring to Baravikha Luxury Village, a focal point for the fashion crowd.

Данила — Danila
Synonymous with freak, a “strange passenger.” The term derives from red-haired Danila Polyakov, who successfully models both man and female lines. Possible to use in the neuter gender — i.e. “polnoe Danilo” (completely Danila) — which is extraordinarily convenient in our new gender-ambiguous world.

Дяга — Dyaga
Russian national nightclub Dyagilev decorated with the Order of the Red Banner. Frequent visits lead to rehab.

Минигарх — Minigarch
Also know as “Oligarch Lite,” “mini-oligarch” or “ruble millionaire.” The term refers to men worth somewhere in the vicinity of $50 million. Not really hip Russian newspeak, since it can already be found in Webster’s dictionary.

Рубль — Ruble
Rublevo-Uspenskoe highway and the surrounding area, which is a natural reserve for Forbesmen (those listed on Forbes Magazine's 100 Richest list).

Тюнинг — Tuning
The main past time of women in the “antique erotic” category. “Zhetskii” (hard) tuning indicates over-saturation with Botox.

У Дини — U Dini
Nickname of Denis Simachev’s bar-café-store on Stoleshnikov Pereulok. Also doubles as a password for feis kontrol — “Is Dinya there?” categorically disarms guards.

Russian — Russian
Describing grandeur and flamboyance, rarely of a constructive type.

Again, THEY SAID IT, NOT ME!

Photo: denissimachev.com

Neverland Ranch

When it's not occupied hosting concerts for aging divas whose stars fell in the rest of the world a long time ago (Gloria Gaynor, David Guetta), elitny megaclub Dyagilev can't resist a good theme party. Here's the Top 5 of the Fall 2007 club season. (Note: these aren't my made-up titles. Like a depraved creative writing summer camp, no theme is too abstract for a game of Let's Pretend at Dyagilev.)

1. "Betty Ford Clinic" (Nov. 9), in which all the skank nurses from Halloween night rise again.

2. "Candidate for President" (Nov. 4), in which Putin's Plan has something to do with bras and shitty techno.

3. "Seven Princesses and You Under a Blanket" (Oct. 26), in which I can only count six princesses. One must be suffocating under the blanket.

4. "Oxygen Boom" (Oct. 18), in which gusts of O2 send maidens into raptures.

5. "Rock & Roll Forever" (Oct. 12), in which the euro humps all other currency. No need to rub it in!

Photos: Geometria.ru

Top Five Plastic Surgery Disasters

5. Sasha Feis Kontrol. His voluminous, marshmallow lips are probably natural, but he turned me away from Leto one too many times...

4. Muz-TV host-turned-LDPR Duma deputy Masha Malinovskaya

3. Singer Flilip Kirkorov. What big eyes you have!

2. Liza Sharikova — actress, model, Fresh Art groupie and frozen in time. Once she shaved her head and tried her hand at singing. Neenu, neenu!

1. The Western world should really know about Sergei Zverev — hairdresser, reality TV star and recipient of our lifetime achievement award. You go, girl!

But these are all celebrities. To witness real collagen in the wild, go to Dyagilev. Oh, we have seen these sisters before. (Cute! That was back when MDBIT hadn't ironed out its grave formatting problems.) Are there two? Three? Four? I can't tell when it bleeds into the next set of girls or when it stops being Dyagilev, but it's a great ride.


Finally, it's good to see we have a sense of humor about things!

Photos: 44110.com. elite.ru, nightparty.ru, geometria.ru, lizasharikova.ru, and myriad other sources

Living in Sin

Before May 9, Victory Day, there's a holiday of even greater importance in Russia: Sinisha Lazarevich's birthday.


This year, the Art Director-King celebrated in Dyagilev with 2,000 of his closest friends, including a 40-strong army of cute Cult of Sinisha adherents.

How does one become the type of person that receives ancient holy icons at a club birthday celebration? According to scant online biographies, the Yugoslavian-born promoter worked at clubs in Belgrade and Italy before arriving in Moscow in the late ‘90s, where he collaborated with Alexei Gorobiy and Mikhail Kozlov to produce some of post-Soviet Russia's first "best" clubs: Jazz Cafe, Circus, Teatralnaya Kvartira, Shambala. With 2003-2005's seasonal triumvirate — Osyen, Zima, Leto — they perfected a cash-cow club paradigm founded in “mysteriousness and elitism.” In other words, deny everything and don't let anyone in. The third tenet is "bohemianism," which means pay student-age models and "freaks" to perculate inside so the ten people that you do let in feel like they're not in the Third World anymore. Then recase Lipton teabags, sell them as $40 pots of elitny chai and rake in the %500 profit.


Or maybe you have baser motivations. In early 2006, Dr. Lazarevich and Co. launched Dyagilev, their greatest social experiment to date. The question was: Given the right stimuli, would people destroy themselves? They pitched a tent in Hermitage Garden; set up skylights and a velvet barrier; and hired a man with a clipboard to stand outside. Then he stepped back to watch the human debasement carnival: lovers separating willingly, daughters sacrificing mothers, girls gouging each others’ eyes out. All of their own free will, obstensibly. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.


Satan, if he tried, could not have chose a better earthly form — bald, smiley, tubby, fruity. He's the Serbian Alexei Sayle. Like Charles Manson, Lazarevich surrounds himself with beautiful girls. Doesn't mean a thing, though: his love of pastel scarves, champagne and open-mouth man-kissing is well-documented. And most gay men I know in Moscow have slept with more women than any Westerner, anyway. Shoot.

Here he is holding a pre-party conference, like its the fucking G8 Summit. Sure, laugh at his misplaced seriousness, his snakeskin jacket, his adult braces. But he's laughing all the way to the bank. With Dyagliev, Lazarevich and partners are earning an estimated $1 million monthly on a $1 million original investment. Psychology, baby!

Photos: geometria.ru, elite.ru

Feed mama5555!

Moscow club photo sites (mainpeople.ru, 4410o.ru, dj.ru) act as social networking devices. On Monday morning, you log onto your account(s), peruse the weekend's photos and mark down which ones you're in. Other members leave comments, holla at you, find out exactly where you were on Saturday, you cheating bitch, etc.

This is how I was able to ID our presumed gulag escapee as mama5555. By outward appearences not strong enough to raise her own champagne glass, mama555 nonetheless manages to make it into Dyagilev (and now Rai) photos every weekend. Perhaps she lives there.

A little about mama5555 (Zhenechka, by her Christian name): she's a Scorpio, her favorite drink is California (?) with mango juice and her favorite clubs are -- wait for it -- Dyagilev and Rai.

Look, her spleen!

Free Anka!

Beloved go-go dancer Anka lives in a cage at Dyagilev, surviving on lollipops and innocence. And she's up on the dorsal fins!

Whores of Dyag-ylon

Ah, that's mean. Alternate title: Postarevshiye Gubastye (Aging Pucker-Lips)

Dyagilev, Moscow's reigning elitny megaclub, home of the $10,000 table, is populated by the type of girls you'd normally see hanging out at carnivals. (I'm just kidding girls, you know I love you.)




















And they say gulags don't exist anymore: this last bitch escaped to party down at Dyagilev.

Dyagilev, 3 Karetny Ryad, Metro: Pushkinskaya, Tel. 790-7400

Photos: 44100.com.