Ain't No Rigga Like the One I Got

Last weekend, I went to the opening party of a new R 'n' B club, Zhara.


Few subcultures inspire as much ire as Russian hip-hoppers (ahem, riggas). Why though? Certainly these homeboys aren't any more ridiculous than, say, Burmese or Canadian homeboys. A character in Aburdistan even points out that Russians share plenty of similarities with their American brothas: they live in housing projects, they solve problems with drive-bys, their kids have asthma.

But all that's not really applicable though because hip hop is only popular with rich teenagers living on Rublyovka whose daddies are the ones killing people. No idea what their lungs look like.


That's M for Moscow, bitch!

Maybe the annoyance comes from the mindfuck of it all. Most riggas hate or at least fear blacks, but worship hip hop culture. And the country's biggest rap star, Timati, isn't black, he's Jewish/Tartar. Meh, he's tan — close enough.


The crowd in front of Zhara naturally parted when a real black man approached. He couldn't walk 50 meters in the city without being stopped by police, but was graciously waved in by the feis kontrol, operating under instructions to admit anyone with a tan. To give the club their air of authenticity.


The only explanation that I can come up with is that the Russian hip hop party is a carnival, that ritual staging of the violent decomposition of society, in which social hierachies are inverted. Exactly at this time is when you feel the weight and power of social totality most powerfully. The height of holism and individualism coalesce, etc. The carnival is necessary and cleansing. A societal douche, if you will.

Riggas are also douches. (Outed! Its true, I'm an avid, rabid La Russophobe reader.)





Zhara, 8a Tverskoi Bulvar, Metro: Chekhovskaya, Tel. 650-4556
Photos: geometria.ru, timaty.ru

Rave New World

What the hey, Moscow. Taking all the fun out of rave culture again. A Russian Love Psychedelic Trance party already meant beer & glowsticks in the woods — now we get neo-raver street fashion without any of the sex, drugs & oontz that makes dressing like a fool worthwhile? Ok fine, pass the hair gel.


Sure, New Rave — Neu Rave, sorry — originated in the UK underground, not Tulskaya, but that's not stopping new Moscow label White.Trash.For.Cash from biting its colorful DIY style. As I'm not a 14-year-old from New Cross, I don't understand what New Rave is about. But I'm told it involves neon art, 8-bit video games, MDMA, clocks passing through fire, The Klaxons (above) and people who look like The Klaxons (below). Kids are so weird.


White.Trash.For.Cash held a fashion show at Danilovsky Monastary last Friday. To my limited knowledge, they got all the basics right — skinny jeans, over-sized t-shirts, spandex — although, as usual, drugs were not invited to the party.



White.Trash.For.Cash — a victory for copying good. And quickly! Five out of ten British gutter punks will agree that Neu Rave does not yet suck.



The fashion show attracted hip people. Varshavskoye Shosse or Williamsburg? You tell me.









White Trash for Cash, 18 Perevedenovsky Per., Metro: Baumanskaya, Tel. 109-5609

Photos: wtfc.ru, geometria.ru

Its ANDREA$ Time

Rai promoter Andreas (or ANDREA$, if you'll humor that eccentricity) had a birthday last weekend. We now know more about the life and opinions of this Caligulan dwarf than ever before.


ANDREA$ — carries a man purse.



ANDREA$ — snuggles pop stars (like Vlad Topalov).



ANDREA$ — wears a silk robe.



ANDREA$ — cannonballs.



ANDREA$ — juggles strippers in the water.



ANDREA$ — gets "gaysted."


No, don't try to understand it. Different plane of existence entirely. Your life is more like a Kyrgyz shit herder's than it is like his.

I don't know, I like Rai. All the preeeeteeee colors. Everything beautiful, and nothing hurts. A wonderful place to sink into oblivion.



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

Photos: geometria.ru

Mo' for Your Money

Generally I don't like to pollute Moscow's premier amateur nightlife anthropology blog with business plugs, but in this case I'm bound by inguinal duty, having known Lochamer ever since 1996 when we were colleagues at Sibneftgazpromsoyuzcorporation's Vienna branch office, then later as bandmates in mid-2001 Moscow boobcore outfit I Hate Your Endomorphic Girlfriend. Back then she had a lez-mullet, and I was still going around as DJ Lazy V.

At any rate, turn to Mo Corporation for all your next-generation performance-driven goal-oriented momentum strategy needs. Pretty standard stuff, but here is their pitch:

holistic development solutions
blue-sky targeting techniques
comprehensive success blueprinting
zero disclosure proposal benefits
market leaders in increase and reduction (I&R) strategies
across-the-board accountability charters
quality-standard matrix approach™
pre- and/or post-market saturation recovery
:::::::::::MO CORPORATION:::::::::::::::::::

Our unique corporate proposition? That’s what we deliver to you!

MO is the leading cutting-edge diversified integration service provider on the international corporate arena. We provide a full spectrum of business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and consumer-to-business (C2B) services for the business and consumer community. Our commitment to the diversification and simplification of integration practices has led us to develop the groundbreaking quality-standard matrix approach™. This unique IPR method ensures superior enhancement level consistency across the board in all spheres of corporate diversity.

Together, reach for the sky!

MDBIT in the Mix

Not too long ago, Mix celebrated its 7th birthday. It's an after-party club, which is where people on drugs go after all the drunk people have passed out. As a result, Mix can be alienating for those who are not on drugs.

My friend Vlad once called me at 6 a.m., high on life, with a proposal. "MDBIT, I've always wondered what it would be like to wake up in the morning, and go straight to a nightclub before breakfast. I've been here all night, but you can wake up now, come to me at Mix, and tell me what it's like. Or you can go back to sleep." I chose social experiment over sleep because I am a scientist after all. Upon my 7.30 am arrival to the club, I was looked over in a way that an art director with a single dreadlock coming out of the back of his head should never be allowed to look at someone. But he let me in. I chose orange juice with my vodka, you know, because it was breakfast.

The kind of people one meets in a nightclub at 8 a.m. are the kind of people who claim to be 28 when they're pushing mid-forties. Moreover, they look like they've been pushing for a long time, and it's been quite the struggle. Dzaek (don't ask me) was just such a guy. Leathery to an extent that my dad can only dream to be, Dzaek accompanied me to Tapa de Comida when the club closed around us. At 9 a.m. he started the slow decline into his breakfast. Weighed down by all the years and earrings, his head made its way down into his breakfast salad, led by a trail of drool, until finally that leather bag met its lettucey pillow. Seems Dzaek had been partying for a long time (maybe 35 years) because it was impossible to wake him. So I left him there. As a tip.

Here are photos from the birthday party. All of these people are on drugs.







Photos: 44100.com

Mix, 11 Novinsky Bulvar, Metro: Barrikadnaya, Tel. 255-4333

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

Recursive Functioning

Hey there, Hugh Grant. In Moscow, we like our paparazzi. We give them awards, we don't throw cans of baked beans at them. Menu Face Control is a free monthly reportage glossy distributed in high-end restaurants — its cutting-edge Photoshoppery (heighten contrast, add noise, saturate) makes the beholder feel sexy, godless and invincible. Like narcotic tranquilizers. On April 26, the magazine hosted its 2007 Face Control Awards to celebrate the year's best nightlife photos.


Nightlife photo-taking is a business, and business is good. On Monday morning, log on to cityparty.ru, havefun.ru, dj.ru, lifestars.ru, mainpeople.ru, 44100.com, nighttime.ru, geometria.ru and others to see if anyone snapped you smashing a zolotoi on the head with a champagne bottle. Most have a social networking feature to keep track of one's nocturnal compatriots.


Geometria is the most otherwordly of the online shutterbugs. Under its alien lens, you'll never die, you'll never grow old. Even Phillip Kirkorov looks like Dorian Gray.


Nightlife photos of a nightlife photos awards ceremony — the snake has consumed its tail!


Tsigal, Simachev, baldies and Bon — is there nothing new under the sun? Moscow’s beau monde set is as deep as a kiddie wading pool, and just as cloudy. Sometimes people take photos of me by accident.






Photos: geometria.ru.