With magical blogging, you can wish things into being. Such as Fresh Art’s Russian Fashion Week party last weekend, which assembled 4 out of 5 of our plastic surgery train-wrecks in the same room, plus a handful of other recurring MDBIT characters. If Danila Polyakov had shown up, I would have shut down down this dangerous, dangerous voodoo doll of a blog.
This is Fresh Art. They used to go to my gym. Now they look sort of human, but there was a time when they ran around in ass-length gold dreadlocks and blue contacts. They are a Russian design trio. What do they design? Oh, everything.
They also excel at soft lens photography of backwards multiculturalism; shooting music videos with wax figurine Liza Sharikova; and hella socializing. When Fresh Art threw a party — a Fresh P-Arty, hehehe — at Elysium, the concert hall wing of Rai, on October 20, everyone came.
Rai promoter Andreas pays homage to Fresh Art's early-'90s, irony-less cool by shaving patterns into his flattop.
Holy crap, those Dyagilev chicks weren't even famous before, just an Internet meme. Now they're hanging on the corpse of Sergei Zverev.
Fresh Art can't leave home without Sharikova's mummy.
Even Sasha Feis Kontrol heeded the call.
Some new stars of the plastic surgery world were born.
Looks a little bit like the last days of Hitler's bunker.
I guess I'll round this off with photos of one of the Fresh Artists mauling a dancer. Don't call him gay!
Haven’t you heard? Looks like we’ve been eating poo (a lot of it). Good one, Moscow.
But mastication stopped being fun a looong time ago. I, for one, lost my appetite somewhere around Etazh, a nasty little cafe chain that’s managed to harness the city’s worst restaurant tendencies: face control, tacky design, shameless misrepresentation of the rich culinary traditions of Japan, Italy and Mexico. Also, it’s loud, and the waiters are mean.
Screw you, Etazh.
When eating is a constant struggle, it’s easy to lose hope. For guidance, many turn to an expat eating club. Such as:
Journo Clusterfuck Thursdays — When you were young, energetic and could still fit into size 4 jeans, you went to Propaganda Thursdays to make friends. Some of them were even Russian. Now that you can’t be bothered with new people and all you want is a chimichanga and a margarita, you go to Hemingway’s, even though chances are high you’ll be trapped at the end of the table with “Francis” from “Element.” I mean, "Matt" from "Jew News." I mean, I love you guys.
Wednesday Evening Food Critics Association of Moscow — The Skull & Bones of the Moscow expat social world, WEFCAM is governed by intricate set of dining rules, such as “Teresa must always pay 1,000 rubles.”
Turkish Women’s Association — Rumor has it they eat tartines at Le Pain Quotidien on Mondays.
Cheezeburger Klub — I’m not only the president, I’m also a member. The club generally convenes at McDonalds Pushkinskaya, Starlite Diner Mayakovskaya or my kitchen Aeroport. Contact me if you want in.
Then again you may not want to eat with expats. They’re mostly cheap, fussy bastards, like this joker who did amateur undercover reporting into Hemingway's lack of chili cheese.
If you really want to lose your lunch, check out his riveting "Four Russian Hookers" documentary. It's like Spike Lee's "Four Little Girls," except starring an aging expat loser and his hookers.
You remember Kolomeskoe from Afisha Picnic (You remember it all very clearly because you were wet and sober). On the expansive grounds of this historical park, Russia's No. 2 investment bank Troika Dialog managed to do what a bunch of lazy hipsters could not: throw a fucking party.
To be fair, Troika Dialog had more funds to play with. A long time ago, CEO Ruben Vardanyan promised that if the company's worth exceeded $1 billion, he would give away $10 million in bonuses to everyone from top executives to the cleaning ladies. Everyone was real thrilled about that. What they didn't know was that Crazypants McGee also planned to parachute into his own killer party if they hit the mark.
Well, they did, and he did.
On the last Saturday of September, Kolomenskoe was transformed into Troika Dialog's "Gorod Mechty" (City of Dreams). Life at an investment bank sucks — you work like a dog, do a lot of stimulants and then blow your entire 75K bonus on a stupid green watch. Some people think you've become a sociopath. But it all becomes worth it when you get to go to a company party and send your friends text messages that say, "Holy fucking shit Prince is on fucking stage."
Prince, the world's most erotic diminutive pop star, at a Moscow corporate party. You'll have to visualize that yourself though, because the only photos from the event to be found in the Internet ether are promo shots of "human decorations," and the above party snaps from what looks to be an arty secretary. Russian business lacks transparency?
SCRATCH THAT. A MDBIT reader who wishes to remain anonymous just sent in this hazy cellphone pic of what appears to be Prince in some sort of concert venue. Rock-solid evidence, My work here is done.
Photos:elite.ru, youha.livejournal.com, that one guy
Shit, I thought I had my finger in every hole of teen culture. But I missed last weekend’s Trendy Candy 2 party at Proyekt Fabrika, which is some unholy union of White Trash for Cash, 9 Lines internet magazine and a bunch of arty LiveJournalists, to say nothing of Trendy Candy 1. For shame, MDBIT.
Hey, you misspelled, ah — nevermind.
An old-fashioned high school party in an industrial warehouse, where people are staggering around drunk, snapping each others underwear and shotgunning Sovetskoe Shampanskoye, makes for great Larry Clarky photography. In fact, the entire party was staged in order for people to take high-contrast photographs for their blogs.
Like this:
What I like about this party is that it’s overrun with gay guys and riotously drunk, well-dressed chicks, both of whom would be unwelcome in any other nightlife establishment in the city. Maybe that’s why they’re partying in a paper mill. If I were a boy, I would be all over this scene. By 3 a.m., it must be like shooting fish in a bucket.
I mean, shit. Cheers to the chick in blue vinyl, because there are definitely not enough of her in Moscow. I was going to lie and say she was me, but I already said I wasn't there. Rats. Brother of mine, you have my blessing to marry fair Abnormal Circus. Let's look at her some more:
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?
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
Butt-ugly shoes.
Babies.
Rai promoter Andreas pays homage to Fresh Art's early-'90s, irony-less cool by shaving patterns into his flattop.
Holy crap, those Dyagilev chicks weren't even famous before, just an Internet meme. Now they're hanging on the corpse of Sergei Zverev.
Fresh Art can't leave home without Sharikova's mummy.
Even Sasha Feis Kontrol heeded the call.
Some new stars of the plastic surgery world were born.
Looks a little bit like the last days of Hitler's bunker.
