Justo Banya Death

Sauna-turned-apathetic nightclub Justo Banya Dush seems to have fallen in with wrong crowd in the past year. That is to say, no crowd at all. After a mega-impressive opening, Justo rested on its laurels as one of the самый закрытый (most closed-est) clubs in Moscow, never deigning to do the one thing it was supposed to do -- bring the party. Sad, but we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Gave it enough rope to hang itself with

We went out of our way to find its silly unmarked door. We stood in the cold when they couldn't find our name on the list. We paid 3,000 rubles for tables in an empty club. We made excuses to our friends for Justo's failure to perform. We all believed what we wanted to believe -- that it was the harbinger of new generation of Moscow clubs, cool not corny, where hoodies reigned supreme and hoochies were kicked to the curb.

Head tattoos? Really? As Chris Rock said, you can drive a car with your feet, that doesn't mean it should be done! (Also, you can't catch a crackhead in a footrace)

But alas, shuttered behind a steel door, the Great Hip Hope has turned into a haunt for pasty freaksi. Even TimeOut, a cheerleader for Moscow's elitny club scene, described the vibe at Justo as "melancholy." A great place for, like, wristcutters meetings.

"Down the road, NOT across the street, guys"

So these are photos from a White Trash For Cash party night at Justo. Now ask yourself, would you rather be drinking here, or in Bittsevsky Park, killing grounds of the Bittsevsky maniac? At least the latter don't have men in formal shorts.

"Rater, cruer worrd!" -- Justo

Justo Banya Dush, 3 Teatralny Proyezd, Metro: Teatralnaya, Tel. 625-6836

Photos: adensya.ru, mainpeople.ru

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Every once and a while there comes a club that humanity is so much gayer for. This time it’s Famous, from the promoters who did yesteryear hotspot First. It was known for being a) opposite the Kremlin and b) really douchey.

Gaymous

I like to think that Russian nightlife is moving in the right direction – towards democracy and good fashion sense, albeit following a different beat (shitty techno). But with developments like these, it seems that's just a bedtime story told to little bloggers.

There are reasons Moscow clubs have fire problems

Questions abound. How did a club this mid-'90s cheesy survive into the 21st century? Were we lulled into a false sense of security by a string of respectable openings? Is this our punishment for getting too cocky?

While positioning itself as elitny megaclub, Famous lacks the self-introspect and playfulness of Rai and Dyagilev which could push it over the brink to pure camp pleasure. So it’ll just carry on being fascistically exclusive, pointlessly expensive, criminally tasteless and ultimately joyless -- except for, I guess, 1990s club nostalgists.

Klaatu Barata Nikto, man

80s cokehead power couple -- this is complete atavism!

Sadly, he is in her league at Famous

It's Teeeeeeeeeeam Date Rape

As the first big club to open in the Medvedev era, Famous could be a harbinger of bad things to come. Perhaps under that friendly liberalist chipmunk façade, he's an even badder bitch than Putin.

Oh no! Make way for Crazy M

Every cloud has a silver lining, I guess, as the Famous photos have a little something to increase your chances for a successful clubbing experience. Listen up: The wiseguy with the cigar is Alexei Gorobiy, who started the wildly decadent Zima/Leto/Osen franchise. (Read more about him in this indispensible Vanity Fair piece.) And the one doing the devil fingers is the fabled Pasha Feis Kontrol. By day he's a dentist who lives with his mother (unsubstaniated rumor I chose to spread as fact). By night he wields the God-given authority to deeeee-ny your ass. Combined, these two men have the absolute power to make or break your night, so tread carefully. The guy in the middle, disregard.

"You scuffed my Puma! You'll never club in this town again!!!"

Famous, 15 Rochdelskaya Ulitsa, Metro: Krasnopresnenskaya, Tel. 255-5354

Photos: mainpeople.ru

Kheppi Byerthday, Mr. Simachev

The Moscow club scene suffers from an alarming infant mortality rate. Remember Versus? Neither do we. After a gradiose opening last September, it quickly faded into relative obscurity. Even my mother could get into Versus now. If the right backs aren’t scratched, bureaucratic brouhahas over liquor licenses, building permits, pool permits, etc. can easily suffocate a baby club . And “accidental” fires (RIP Dyagilev), the preferred means of solving shareholder disputes, claim an unsettling number of victims.

Burn, baby, burn

With this depressing backdrop, cheers to club survivor Denis Simachev Bar, which celebrated its 1st birthday in May. Maybe it’s the new photographer I’m working with, but the bar also seems to have morphed into a happening place you’d actually want to be in. Back when it opened it was the target of severe anathema from, uh, me for using a hipster disaffected veneer to hide a terminally New Russian heart. That is to say, monstrous feis kontrol, overpriced cocktails and golden youth club kids hiding under cardigans. And above all, Denis Simachev’s facial hair is a bit too Megans Law for my taste.

Hide the kids

So it's hard to place why Denis Simachev Bar seems so appealing these days. The photos from the birthday party verify that the place is still very small and very congested, like partying in an ironic shoebox.

Also, what kind of Russian club doesn't have this waiting to slice you open on the dance floor with her razor-sharp pelvic bone. (Sounds of people across the world booking flights to Moscow.) Boring.


I guess its only real acheivement (but one that can by no means be denigrated) is they have hot Russian men, a mythological species. And not just one, but several. I've been at this game for a long time and have yet to see more than two attractive men in the same club. Once, it seemed true, but there was just a mirror in the room.

And if you think that's unusual, get this: They also managed to snag a lesbian for indie street cred. Not a Girl Gone Wild (those are falling out of trees in Moscow), but a real Sapphic powerhouse.

Finally, the man on the left is a Grade A asshat for not letting me in with my cupcake print rainboots. But be nice to him because he mans the door at Simachev Bar.

Photos: uaixblog.com, mainpeople.ru, mixtura.org

Denis Simachev Bar, 12 Stoleshnikov Per., Metro: Teatralnaya, Tel. 629-8085

If You Bring Shoes, They Will Come

So Marc Jacobs visited his boutique on Petrovka for 45 minutes.

In the words of Adam Sandler, "Whoopity-doooooooooooooooooo."

Who cares about the fey American designer and his beautiful, beautiful shoes. What’s really important here are the colorful human fauna an event like this brings out of the woodwork. And not just the skeezy hipster fashionistas! Also the ones who are married to billionaires and lezz out on MTV and stuff. If you can't get excited about this, the world doesn't hold much more for you.

Let’s have a look.

Whoa, a rare live sighting of Darya Zhukova and Polina Deripaska. These bitties landed Forbes’s second and first richest Russians, respectively. Curious that they still shop at Zara.

Tatu’s Julia Volkova: At least she wore underwear. Note the interestingly hardcore shin tattoo. Does she work at a junkyard?

The real stars of the show were the slim princes, those slips of gay men with a gleam in their eyes and a glass of champagne in their hands.

Danila cut his hair! How cute is he with his little flourecsent tummy showing

Eerily Dorian Grey-ish MTV Russia VJ Vlad Lisovets

Designer Dima Loginov, who looks like a Kraftwerk Michael Ian Black

Vogue's Most Fashionable DJ (whoops, I mean Vogue Russia) in his element. As you can see indoor sunglasses are in, in, in, my friend!

Marc Jacobs was excited about it all as we were

Who let the freaksi in?

Mwah mwah! Air kiss

On a related note, all it takes to win my heart are size 38 Marc Jacobs flats. What size? 38!

Photos: mixtura.org, mainpeople.ru

Marc Jacobs, 16 Petrovka Ulitsa, Metro: Kuznetsky Most, Tel. 624-2023

One Night in Moscow

Big ups to Paris Hilton, who appears to have made Moscow her second home. She was just in town last month to visit roosky BFF Kiira Plastinina, the heinously rich teen-cum-heinous fashion designer. (I wonder what that last sentence will do for my Google hits…) This week Paris came back with that guy from Good Charlotte to promote her sexy new fragrance Can-Can Cocktail. (Again...)

Paris and Kiira ride the short bus the elevator at Yevropeisky shopping mall

Most Western stars are far too prudent to venture east of Cannes, and with good reason. A bad night in France ends with herpes and a sugar hangover, not missing organs and a ditch in Butovo*. Also, many customer service mainstays we take for granted in the West have not yet reached the former Soviet Union. Like human rights. And TiVo.

But I guess some people have a taste for extreme tourism. And you better believe Paris is getting real paid every time she shows her face in these parts - $1 million a night, if you read the Russian tabloids. Ow, ow! For that money, few people would kick Moscow out of bed for eating crackers. Certainly not me, with Long Island Ice Tea prices at 500 rubles and rising.

Paris about to get feised at her own party

Paris was last spotted at Wall Street Bar, the new and thoroughly weird conflation of all things English speaking. In the neo-modest tradition started by The MOST, it is touting itself as a not entirely depraved place for serious businessmen to meet other serious businessmen and stupidly attractive women. Seriously, looking at the girls in these photos, Paris Hilton comes off as about a 7 and me a feral gypsy child.

The Russian PH knockoff -- plastic smells weird, causes headaches

Wall Street Bar frequenters work hard and play hard. And get paid hard and pay hard (450 rubles for a mojito). There’s Bloomberg TV on the plasma screen cuz the Asian markets open at 3 am. Buy! Sell! Buy! Jackpot!

Checkin' her stocks

The ol’ co-opting-a-famous-name-sans-any-connection trick reminds of a scam language school Garvard Inglish which operated in Moscow in the early naughties. They flew in hordes of teachers from the First World then kept them as indentured servants in Russia, raking all the dough without paying the help. I knew some of these forgotten victims -- Americans and Brits who came with a dream to see the world and exploit innate language skills rather than get a real job. They were left destitute and malnourished, without enough money to cover the rounds at Silver’s. Since the expat.ru servers crashed, there’s no one left bearing witness to this atrocity but MDBIT.

But anyway, unlike that naughty Garvard, we trust Wall Street will provide refreshing beverages and invaluable business connections.

*Moscow suburb you never want to end up in. May as well be Afghanistan, because there’s no sushi and kalyan.

Wall Street Bar, 9/1 Volkhonka Ulitsa, Metro: Kropotkinskaya, Tel. 7(495) 916-5731

Photos: Paparazzi.ru, elite.ru

Twipster 'Do-'Do

Mysteries of Russian indie steez revealed! Twipster (Third World Hipster) internet portal Look at Me now has step-by-step instructional videos on how to do your hair like a Moscow club kid. Featured are the vaguely Latin "Idalgo", the ironic '90s throwback "Luke Perry" and the "Decembrist," named after revolutionaries who tried to overthrow the tsar and were exiled to Siberia. History remembers both their revolting and their revolting hair. Noticeably absent from this hair collection is the mythological mullet. Perhaps it was all just a bad dream?

Eagle-eye readers will recognize this крутой stylist from a previous episode of MDBIT.

That's right, it's the Karl Lagerfeld impersonator from last summer's Thriller party! Thanks for playing.

Photos: lookatme.ru

Firsto de Mayo

Once upon a time, Oleg Gazmanov was the lone ranger waxing nostalgic about the CCCP. Senile as he is, he kinda has a point. Some of my favorite people were born in the Soviet Union (then fled immediately). If you filter out all the bad shit, you come up with a pretty neat set of things: chess, cosmonauts, torpedos, spies, “big science” (our favorite, too). We’d add that ambisexual Mickey Mouse knock-off Cheburashka and those medical bars for kids made of dehydrogenated cow blood to the list, as well.

The original O.G.

Nowadays, when journalists are accidentally getting deaded and history textbooks are giving a more patriotic look at the past (Stalin was a great micromanager), nationalism is just the safest hand to play, even on the club scene. Opera’s Pervomaika (1st of May) party resurrected that old proletariat spirit, and showed the world that a monstrous regime is a pretty sexy beast when it lets its hair down.

Now most Opera frequenters were born in the Yeltsin era, not the Evil Empire. Having never been forced to endure long queues and pointlessly circuituous beauracracy for basic supplies (unless you consider sushi and kalyan basic supplies, in which case every weekend at Etazh), they have a somewhat glamorized version of the not too distant past. It's less about Lenin and Marx, more about free vodka shots and STDs.

I survived 80 years of oppression and all I got was these stupid rigger grandkids?

Keeping it really real: gulag chic

Surely the Soviet Union wasn't this bad

If you want a vision of the Moscow future, it's a stiletto stamping on a human face. Forever.

Photos: geometria.ru