Moscow is in a construction boom. Whereever you look, you see workers rising one skyscraper after another. But you’ll also find old buildings within the city. Stalin had some ambitious plan to build the highest buildings of the world. He never managed to break the record, but he built some very beautiful ones, like the Moscow University or The Ukraine Hotel.

When I came to Moscow my friend Vadim let me crash on his couch for a while until I settle and find a place for myself. He is living in one of the “Seven Sisters”, which are skyscrapers built by Stalin in the 1950’s. Only 7 from originally planned 8 were built at the end and one is as beautiful as the other. Only 2 of them are apartment buildings and renovated apartments inside are among the most wanted and expensive in Moscow. Thanks for letting me stay there Vadim ;-)

This one is a Kudrinskaya Square, just near Barikadnaya Metro. You’ll find the Real Mc Coy Bar/Club in the bottom of it.

Here are some links with more info:
http://members.tripod.com/rossiya_david/id39.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow)
http://architecture.about.com/library/weekly/aa090501k.htm

And here is a list of Russia’s talles skyscrapers:
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/ci/bu/sk/li/?id=100839&bt=2&ht=2&sro=1

View from Vysotki - The White House

Fabian from Frankfurt just came for a short visit and we needed to take him out for a spin through the city and some clubs.

Suzy Wong

We met at Suzy Wong. The place is cozy with very nice and elegant interior. At first it looks like a posh expensive place, but the prices in the menu are not killing you. Suzy Wong offers food, but the portions are too small and the quality is lower average, so I suggest you eat before or after. The lounge, which reminds me a lot of some New York So-Ho places because it’s a larger loft, offers the best music I have heard so far in Moscow and the cocktails are small as well, but very good. They offer a wide variety of drinks, not only cocktails, but different Whiskeys and other liquor. We went for some Calvados. They offered 4 different ones and I started to regret that I didn’t bring a bottle from Paris. I have read “Arc de Triomphe” from Remarque a while ago. A reviewer said the sad book is full of Paris, love and alcohol. Indeed, the main character Ravic, a doctor and illegal refugee in the Paris of the 40s, meets his friends in bars for a chat and drinks only and a lot of Calvados. Well, back to Moscu and Suzy Wong. Go check it out. I suggest you go there for an after work drink or it’s also a good place to meet friends for a chat, have a date or just lounge and listen to some good (the best) music in Moscow.

Suzy Wong
11 Ul. Timura Frunze (Metro Park Kultury)
noon-last guest.
Tel: (495) 245-4849

NOTE: Suzy Wong got busy, especially on weekends. Its better to call and reserve a table.

Inside Suzy Wong

Propaganda

I don’t have to mention Propaganda again. On Thursdays its kicking ass and I still say it’s the best night in town in terms of music and the mix of people. Tuesdays are nice as well, when they play Hip Hop and Sunday is gay night, if you are from the rainbow family. By the way, Prop also offers excellent food during the day for a very fair price. After clubbing be aware of con artists and pick pockets nearby the club.

Propaganda
7 Bolshoi Zlatoustinsky Per. (Metro Kitai-Gorod)
noon-6am, Thu.-Sat. noon-7am

Artem and Andrey “Stalker” @ Gaudi

Gaudi

We also went to Gaudi, which is an old factory turned into a club in the North of Moscow. It is the kind of techno club you know from any metropolitan city with an artistic audience. Gaudi could also be in Berlin, Paris, London or New York. Its industrial, basic interior gives it the right backdrop for groups and DJ’s like Fisherspooner, Reinhardt Voigt (last weekend) or Swayzek. We went to see a party from the Berlin based techno label Compact. 500 Rbls ($17) entry fee per person were a bit pricy, especially since door cover is unusual in Moscow. Check out the video to get an idea about the club and the night. Sorry for the bad sound, but it was pretty loud any my mic didn’t work well. Fabian was a bit disappointed about the way they mix Vodka Red Bulls I think. I have been to Gaudi a few times and I like the people there. The problem with the club is, that it is very large and its usually only half full, which is not good for the party atmosphere. Also be aware of the taxi drivers waiting outside. They are ripping you off. Saturday they wanted 1000 Rbl for a trip that was worth 300. But be careful, the club is not in a good area. Avoid walking around at night. They have railroad tracks near, where homeless and illegal people live in old wagons and I’d consider the area unsafe.

Gaudi
1 Skladochnaya Ul. (Metro Savyolovskaya)

Gaudi crowd

Skazka

We moved on to Skazka. After all we needed to show our friend some of the more glamorous Moscow crowd. Skazka used to be Ministerstvo and is in the bottom floor of the Communications Ministry. It is owned by Alexei Goroby’s, who also used to run Osen, Leto and is part of the Shambala/Zima crew. Skazka means fairytale, but the club is far from that. Fabian compared it to a more upscale table dance club, after he has seen the more than hot dancers and a few whores standing around. My reply was only, Its Moscow man! The club plays the commercial house music, that we are used to from other upscale clubs in Moscow and that is (for me and my friends) only bearable after significant amounts of Vodka Red Bulls. The drinks are pricy, but that is the price you pay for being with the rich and famous of Moscow. Its said to be a club for the younger audience, but I haven’t seen much difference to other clubs. Of course you don’t see the fat and sweaty that are hanging out elsewhere in town. Even so the club is posh and pricy, I like the atmosphere and go there once in a while, especially after I am nicely buzzed. Face control is supposed to be tight, but I never had problems to get in (even in baggy pants and skateboard sneakers). In fact the doorman is very nice, friendly and speaks good English.

Skazka
24 Malaya Nikitskaya Ul. (Metro Barrikadnaya)
Thu.-Sat. midnight-6am

Check the girl on the right. There are plenty
of dancers at Skazka. Its just nice to have
drink and watch a little, while she dances on
the bar just near you.

Skazka in blue

The Real Mc Coy

Its about 5 AM when we move on to nearby Real Mc Coy. The place is overcrowded and the music is only occasionally good, so I ask myself what brings us back there almost every night we go out for a tour. I guess it’s the large and good drinks, which are fairly priced, the fact that there are no commercial whores and that you always meet interesting people there. Its easy to start a chat with everybody, may it be the English guy who manages a Casino or a Russian student of physics. The place is defiantly for Expats. That night we came a bit late. The place was a bit more empty already, but almost everybody was drunk to the top. That again, was an interesting and entertaining people watch. RMC closes around 6 AM for a short cleanup, before they open for breakfast again. We moved on to Mix, which is also a short walk from there.

The Real McCoy
1 Kudrinskaya Ploshchad (Metro Barrikadnaya)
24 hours - http://www.mccoy.ru/

Fabian @ Real Mc Coy

Mix

Mix is one of the after hour clubs in Moscow. I have written about it before,. Its famous for its druggy (but nice!!) party crowd that comes anytime from 3 to 7 AM and stays until noon. Check the two videos I made: Video 1 - Video 2. Its said to be hard to get inside, since the club is very small and usually packed (and yes, the bumping into each other also goes on my nerves), but I never had problems to get into Mix. Usually they have their own resident DJs playing, but occasionally guests. This weekend we had some German DJ spinning there and Greg from Thugfucker also gave a (very drunken) performance there when he was in town. Mix is good and the only alternative (I know) to Garage in terms of after hour partying after 6 AM. Garage was said to be dead and closed a million times for the past year, but its still alive and kicking. Be aware of the facecontrol. Its tight and nobody has a clue how they select people. While Garage is full of (good looking) whores, which mostly move over from the nearby Nightflight after it closes, and lonely hearts looking for somebody to warm the bed, Mix has definitely the better crowd and music. Its just a downer (or maybe good for me) that they don’t sell Red Bull’s there. So usually my night at Mix ends after an hour and a few Evians because I loose power and get tired.

Mix
11 Novinsky Bulvar (Metro Smolenskaya)
Thu.-Sat. midnight-11am, Sun. midnight-2am

Garage
16/2 Tverskaya Ul. (Metro Chekhovskaya)
24 hours

DJane @ Mix

That’s what we did that night as well. We left at 7:30 and we walked down Garden Ring. A new bright day, filling our lungs with (relatively) fresh air. Fabian made it back to his Hotel and right to the airport since his plane left at 1 PM. I made it home and went to bed.

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Paris is burning. Well at least that’s how it looks like in the foreign media. I have just been there 2 weeks ago, when it all started and I didn’t see anything. Its another discussion, if it makes sense if poor people burn poor peoples cars and schools. I guess they can’t make it into the center or into places where the rich live. Last weekend the government closed the train-line from the center to CDG Airport, exactly for that reason, because they were afraid that the trouble makers will use it to get into the center or more people from elsewhere into the suburbs (near the line) to make some action there. I just took that train, had some nice tune in my earphones and thought there are actually nice pictures moving by outside, with all the graffiti’s flying by and the occasional trainstation with people and the suburbs…

Well, with a short reminder (especially for the new rich) about the cause of the French revolution that cost so many rich their heads, I would like to move on and show you the little clip I took that weekend, when I made it back to the airport. From Gare Du Nord to CDG. The music is from Pace Rock (Five Deez). Of course some Shurik or NTM would have been better, but its what I actually had in my player that time. Salut.

Paris > CDG ca. 5min - Qucktime 11.4 MB

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I don’t even know when I first heard rap. I think it was in high school. I have been 12-13 and totally in love with this chick who had family in New York. She frequently went there for visits and was telling stories about driving through Harlem and people throwing stones at their car. When she came back to school after a vacation she had a mix-tape with her and after working on her for weeks, she borrowed it to me so I can make a copy. That was some early Run DMC, Schooly-D, Newclues kind of stuff. Soon later I started to ask around my American friends for more, I got hooked. Addicted. I have been living in a small city in North Bavaria, where we had lots of US soldiers and I was early introduced to the Americans visiting a joint German/American Kindergarten. Ever since I had good relations and my sources to get to these US sneakers and other American goods that were not available in our stores, from the market in the military post.

Rap and mixtapes followed me for a long time. With 14 I started breakdancing and was part of the cities 2nd best crew. We never made it best, because the others just had the more radical moves and they were the better athletes than us. But it helped us to get some fame in the local youth clubs and it really helped with the girls. It was then, when I got my first stereo system for Christmas and I chose one with a double tape deck so I can make my own mix tapes. I had a record player for a long time before, but no way to record things and this new system was just kick ass. My mixtapes weren’t as good as the ones from the DJ’s with their turntables and mixers, but good enough to impress my friends and so I kept mixing more and more, because there was demand and there is no better way than mixing your favorite tunes for the girl you have an eye on.

With my first success in mixing tunes, I decided to put all my money into records and take it further. My mom never understood that and she still wonders why I don’t want to get rid of my large record collection, but I store it on her roof while I am traveling the world now. Indeed, there were times when I turned by back on Hip Hop. One was when Hip Hop became rougher. When being an original Gangsta was the coolest thing you could be. When the rhymes were about shooting people, raping girls and pushing drugs. It was when the Turkish guys in my hometown started to find rap to be their music, because they never intergrated well into our society and the youngsters among them found themselves in the lyrics of rap. But there were not only Turkish gangsters, also lots of white boys in Germany pretended to be black and come from da hood. Ya know na mean, right? I just became fashionable, but among people I couldn’t identify myself with so I decided to move on.

But Hip Hop came back to me, like the one girl that you ever loved and cannot forget, even after she long left you, because you have been such an asshole to her. It came back to me, even so I never wanted to be a black guy or a gangsta, I sucked in graffiti and and I didn’t smoke weed until I turned 24. Yeah, Hip Hop keeps coming back to me again and again. I have been cheating on her with Downbeats, Afrobeat and at the end even House and Electro. But Hip Hop is consistent. She forgives me my failures and exursions into other realms, but comes back to me again and again. During the past she introduced me to a lot of nice people. In Germany, New York and even here in Russia. I met stars like Ice T, but Hip Hop also led me into some bedroom in Bushwick/Brooklyn where I smoked a blunt with some cats and tuned into a freestyle session. Hip Hop is not only a music. Its not only graf art and poetry. Its a lifestyle it has to offer something for everybody, no matter if you are poor or rich, black or white, a musician or a DJ, a writer or a poet. That just leaves me with a statement I borrow from the Philly based group The Roots: Hip Hop you are the love of my life.

Well, here is an older mix of mine. Check it out. I think its 75% good, I’m just not happy with the end, but nobody is perfect and I am working on a new one. Its my style of hip hop, a groovy smooth and chilled blend of hip hop. Just don’t play this when you are driving around town. You car may miraculously transfer into a lowrider, humping up and down, while Cheech and Chong are lightening a “real joint” in the backseat. Its then when you look out of the window and you see Jay and Silent Bob standing near the grocery store greeting you with a smile. Hip Hop is for everybody, man. Just hit the play button and enjoy.

Go Wit Da Flow - mixed by two-zero Feb 2003
[http://www.moscow-blog.com/tunez/withdat.mp3]

All Photos by Francois Portmann - www.fotoportmann.com

Last Saturday was Leto’s final night. Summer is over for quiet a while and we are close to Winter already, so I guess it was about time for the closing. There is a parking lot today, where there used to be one of the largest and best clubs in Moscow. No building has been demolished, but Leto was always only provisory, a tent that was built up every weekend to become the pleasure dome for Moscow’s VIP’s. So, what is next after Osen (Autumn) and Leto (Summer)? We’ll see. I guess a Winter or Spring club, depending on how fast the owners will be able to bring back another and how much of a break they need after an exhausting summer season.

When I say one of the best clubs in Moscow, I am not giving my own opinion, but the general perception of the Moscovites, especially the new rich Russian high society. But compared to Osen, Leto was large enough for some selected mid-class as well. Face control wasn’t as tough as in Osen and other upscale establishments in the city, so you could regularly see the Bar 30/7 crowd moving on to Leto after 30/7 got dull (around 2-3 PM).

But 30/7 has the better music, indeed. I don’t want to compare a bar with a large club, but I wonder when Moscovites and the big clubs are finally let go of their cheap commercial music taste and tune into the finer sounds of House and Electro as they are played in the top clubs around the globe? International DJ’s traveling to Moscow know already, that they have to play “Boom-Boom” to make the Russian crowd happy. I’m regularly disappointed when I go see one of my favorite DJ’s visiting Moscow. Like Julez from Paris who played in Fabrique and I needed to leave after 30 min, because I just couldn’t take it anymore. Not even massive amounts of Vodka Red Bull’s helped to make it bearable.

Others like KLF or Professor Oz, who played in Leto last Saturday, stay true to their style and taste, but earn shaking heads and misunderstanding from the Russian crowd. But what would you expect from the minds of Mafia Bosses and Mini-Oligarchs mixed with the want to be famous and rich. They seem to like to hear simple stuff and the club has to please them. Even Leto saw better times already. Good that Cabaret has just re-opened in Hotel Metropol and offers a place for the hardworking fat and sweaty and their girls, oh excuse me models I meant. Hopefully the club following Leto will target a different crowd. It’s what Moscow urgently needs for such a long time and the club-owners and promoters seem to have good music taste (if you talk to them in private), but also know how they must please their customers.

Here are some photos that Magali took last weekend, when she has been in Moscow. At the bottom you’ll also find a video with some music sample from Leto’s last night and by the way, did you know that Dolce and Gabbana were visiting Leto as well last Saturday? They were here for some presentation in their Moscow store. I wonder how they liked it.

Leto before the crowds spill in.

Another last inside view of Leto before it finally closes down.

Bruno practicing for the gig.

Backentrance of Leto. You can see the construction of the tent.
Bruno, Katrine and Olivier .

And here is the video from inside Leto: MPEG - 8 MB