Flight of the Tsigal

Meet club kid Masha Tsigal. When you already look like an Anime character, fashion is a natural career choice. And it doesn't hurt to have famous artist relations (Grandma designed the famous Soviet "Nye Boltai" propaganda poster). She of the blonde pigtails and saucer-plate eyes studied design in London in the late '90s and returned to become the darling of the Moscow fashion scene. Her "return to childhood" aesthetic prostitutes the cool fifth grader in a unicorn sweater you once were. All the same, we could all use friends like Masha for fashion advice, at age 11 or today.








"Milky Way," Tsigal's autumn-winter 2007-2008 collection, debuted at Moscow Fashion Week on Wednesday. The artist is moving towards a full-blown slumber party, with bold employment of glitter, jammies, felt balls and tiaras.

Photos: www.fashiontime.ru

Best of 2006

And the votes are in! (Or were in on March 3 -- this is kind of old.)
Here's the Best of 2006:

Best Dance Club Opera
Best DJ Sergei Losev
Best Erotic Club 911
Best Bar Bar 7
Best Club Project Marlboro Mxtronic
Best Music Club Ikra
Club Personality of the Year Timatei
Opening of the Year Krysha Mira
Club of the Year Dyagilev

Moscow takes its leisure very seriously. So, the Night Life Awards, an annual back-patting ceremony by the club industry, is one of the most important social events of the year. The Oscars in FM boots, it's broadcast on MTV Russia, so that even Siberian peasants can know what's what in the Moscow nightlife. Dima Bilan and Banderos performed.

No big surprises for the club community, though some 44100.com commenters worried that the jury was swayed by hype rather than integrity, that there was not enough meaningful differentiation between some of the entrants to merit one a winner over another and that Marlboro's sponsorship may have contributed to a win. The Night Life Awards -- rigged?

In related news, pour some liquor out for 911. Last week, a barman's fireshow got out of control and killed ten people, mostly clients in the badly ventilated upper level VIP booths.












Timotei falling under the dangerous influence of Alla Pugacheva beard Phillip Kirkorov.

















Masha Tsigal with bosom buddy (and fellow pedomorph), actress Nastya Tsvetayeva.


















Anka escapes! Someday I'll buy a house in the country where she can run around free.

















Skank-off.

Photos: www.44100.com

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!

More on Hell

Ah, Moscow spring. The snow melts so you can see all the shit perfectly preserved. Today, while splashing through puddles made by last night's rain, I forgot that potholes in Russia can be so cavernous as to house entire Uzbek dynasties with room for all their Zhigulis, and now my left boot is lined with mud and sheepskin. Sometimes Katie, like Aldous, suggests we are in hell. "We're in hell," she says. Somewhere, sometime, on some other plane of existence, Katie and I were bad and our punishment is to be forever sentenced to Moscow. We both come from sunny places where people don't hate us and are largely -- pardon the pun -- fatter than us, so why did we come here? More importantly, why are we still here? Moscow hates us, and we hate it and want to leave, but find ourselves paralyzed by shock.

Personally, I don't like to be so negative as to think of Moscow as hell on earth. To me, it is more like a bowel, or maybe an intestinal tract. I feel as though I have been swallowed by the city, and she is absorbing from me everything nutritious, and disposing of the rest. I shared my theory with my mother, who addressed Moscow directly with "Spit her out bitch, or else!'"

Too late, Mom. I am already being processed by a sophisticated digestive system where time is just colonic muscle contractions that push me onward, where girls are gastric acid, men are bile and the dating scene is a big anus, and I will soon come out the other end as, well, as shit, basically.

Andy and the Chocolate Factory

A smart man once said, "Moscow is hell, and in hell you can have a great time."





A contemporary rendering of Dante's Inferno would have to include a ring of hell for sins of nightlife excess, where hapless souls would be forced to roll naked in glitter to shitty techno music for eternity. And it would look like Rai ("Heaven"), newly opened on the premises of the defunct Red October chocolate factory. By all accounts, Rai is hotter than the inner ring of hell right now, the dauphin to succeed Dyagilev.

This is club promoter Andreas, protege of the legendary Alexei Gorobiy (Zima, Leto, Osen, Dyagilev), whose feverish fanatasies were made flesh with Rai. Hi, Andy!



Boobies, ship hair, gargoyles, equal opportunity go-go dancing -- in other words, the nightmare of a 7-year-old boy who ate too much candy and fell asleep.




Other stuff that's there which I couldn't find photos of:

• Unicorns. (Real? Not out of the realm of possibility.)
  
• A waterfall.
• $40 Kir Royals.
  
• Forty toliet stalls, one of which is "really big."
  
• Double the face control. The premises houses three separate venues: Heaven (bar), Rai (club) and Elysium (concert hall). Heaven is merely the holding area, from which you have to pass another set of face control to get into Rai. Hanging out at Heaven means you're a loser who couldn't get into the club and will only meet other losers.

These people aren't losers. They got in when the doors to Rai opened at midnight on Feb. 22.




























Rai, 9 Bolotnaya Nab., Metro: Polyanka, Borovitskaya, Tel. 767-1474

Photos: 44100.com, Mainpeople.ru

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!

Down with OPG (Yea, You Know Me)

Rynok chic!

Fashion designer Denis Simachev recently opened his first mono-brand boutique on Stoleshnikov Pereulok, Moscow's haute couture row. It's the one that looks like a present. Two months on, they still haven't taken off the wrapping. My only gripe is that it's obscuring the Agent Provocateur boutique.

Bang! Bang!, his men's fall-winter 2007-2008 collection, is inspired by the Russian criminal lifesyle. Says Simachev:

The hero and inspiration for the show is courageous and masculine. He prefers bright, contrast colours, gold chains and a mixture of classic and street free style. The predominant colours of the collection are red, black, white, beige, grey and gold. The fit of the collection is slightly oversized double-breasted jackets with wide shoulders and loose slacks with tucks on the waist. The classic suit is trimmed with a contrast fabric and lined with a famous "khokhloma" print. Both formal and casual clothes are embellished with gold detail. Sportsjackets and T-shirts are embroidered with the State Emblem of the USSR. Sneakers, brogues and massive boots, with thick heavy soles, have gold zippers on the front. White and black leather parkas with raccoon fur, trimming, raccoon fur coats and mink trimmed fur coats were shown as outerwear. Mink fur hats in black and brown colours covered with gold spray accompanied the looks. The main slogans of the collection are written on the T-shirts in Russian “I ♥ ОПГ” (ОПГ from Russian organized criminal gangs) and “dude has said — dude has done” with the image of a cross on a heavy golden chain.

Photos: Denissimachev.com

Fashism

What do you think? Enough time has past for Nazis to be sexy?

4,900 rubles on SexyKats.ru

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.