24 hours in Moscow is very much like watching a 1970s television set; at times it is monochromatic and clunky looking and it seems kind of Kitsch. There’s the desire to make it look better by fiddling with the contrast – contrast between rich and poor, and cold and hot. By the end of the evening, your vertical hold has gone for a burton.
Moscow is fab if you have dollars to burn, and you like sleaze, debauchery, and surrounding yourself with 7ft tall supermodels. Perhaps London is too, if you know where to look. Turning to the Moscow Times for some recommended clubs leads you to Jesto, where Sushi, models, and DJs are funky. Interestingly, it is free to get in, but the paper warns of ‘face checks’. If a scabby tourist with eyes pointing in different directions by midnight can stumble past the lightly armed soldiers at the door, then the face-detector must have been set to stun, not kill.
A rakish grin accompanying a request for a Moscow Mule might not go down too well with the barman. In fact, things may turn worse when a request for vodka with ginger follows the Moscow Mule refusal. The barmen will instigate some sort of ‘throat check’ when the ‘face-check’ may be too easy. The only way to appease is to replace vodka and ginger with vodka and beer. And more vodkas and more beers.
To make the clubbing experience complete, go to Club XIII, if possible, by Lada. With stunning women sitting alone at the bar at Jesto, the barman may think you are crazy for asking him to scribble down the address of this ‘Club XIII’. It probably wouldn’t be worth trying to explain that it is a little perturbing to see the shady man come up to these stunning women every 15 minutes that they are alone, and point out various unattached gentlemen in the bar. So go to the next club, described best as debauched, by Lada taxi if possible (avoiding the club’s own car – anyone that would run a gas-guzzling Dodge Intrepid outside of the US has to have their contrast adjusted).
A ‘face check’ again is in order, and the entrance fee will be raised according to how much the lady at the door thinks your vertical hold is out of whack, about 25 quid for heavily spirited Ginger folk. Try not to argue if she by chance miscounts your notes, as the gorilla bouncer, straight out of the bouncer role in Who Framed Roger Rabbit is standing close by. After negotiating the stairs of this amazing building – Ryabushinsky’s house – you will notice that the bar prices are ridiculously high. To avoid pissing away any more money, and safe in the knowledge that you are wiped out, grab a seat and watch the debauchery. A red velvet curtain serves as a David Lynch style door and is patrolled by a neckless bodybuilder in a tuxedo. Careful observation will see the door issue forth many scantily-clad beauties. Wealthy looking men will make up the traffic going the other way. More ladies will exit in their underwear. Some men will be refused entry.
A good way of staying out of trouble is to eagerly engage any tall single woman who approaches. Keep her talking on topics such as:
‘Britney Spears’
‘Satan’
‘That bouncer over there is Beelzebub working the doors of hell’
‘How do you teach someone the word understand’
‘Oh you are only 21 years old, I see’
‘A career in the government’
‘correct use of the word sheepish’
‘you come here seldom?’
‘oh they are all ‘working’ behind that velvet door are they’
This kind of distracting tactic, when used on someone with whom you don’t overlap too much in language, can keep you from spending any money for up to 3 hours. Making excuses and leaving alone is a talent that you will probably pick up on the fly. Try lines like ‘Is that Concorde over there?’, or ‘I am tired’ and make a run for it before the bouncers / toothless bodyguard types catch you.
Then wake up in the morning or afternoon, and look around the place you are staying, at the grizzled old women on the street corners hawking a bag of rice, or 3 apples in the biting cold. There isn’t any contrast control.