#11
The Sunday Times (UK)
March 31, 2002
Feature: Why Moscow is now party central
Serious ravers could soon be swapping Balearic sunshine for subzero temperatures
By Lydia Slater

It’s a typical night in Club XIII. Dazzlingly beautiful girls wearing Marc Jacobs and Chloé are scuffing the 18th-century inlaid parquet floor with their Manolos, while their escorts watch them narrowly through dark glasses from the bar. A scantily clad dancer gyrates on a podium; blink and she has been replaced by another — equally gorgeous and scantily clad.

This latter-day Studio 54 is in Moscow, which is fast becoming the new clubbers’ playground. The last time I went to a Russian nightclub was on a school trip in 1985; then, as I recall, someone produced a guitar and we all clasped hands and sang folk songs before the cabbage beer was passed around.

Fortunately, things have changed a lot. And though the inclusion of Moscow on the party club circuit might strike the uninitiated as bizarre, it does, in fact, make perfect sense.

“Russians love to party,” says Club XIII’s promoter, Gary Chaglasyan. “All the restaurants and clubs are full all the time. People are making up for years of deprivation.”

Add to this rediscovered hedonism the Russians’ innate penchant for full-on glamour, and the serious quantities of oil money sloshing around the capital, and you have the ingredients for a decadent scene that has seen the arrival of several new nightclubs. Right now, alongside Club XIII, the buzz is about A Priori and Serdtse (Heart). And London’s hip nightspot Chinawhite is already said to be in negotiations with the Russian authorities.

Meanwhile, the three-year-old Club XIII is still holding off its rivals. “It is my favourite place to DJ,” says Lisa Loud, who regularly makes the trip. “The scene in Britain is so unglamorous. I don’t want to be partying with 18-year-olds in trainers, all off their faces. This caters to a much more sophisticated crowd.” So, while trainer-wearers may occasionally be allowed past the design police at the door of Club XIII, “they must be in Prada or Gucci trainers”. So says Chaglasyan, who has no qualms about declaring that his club has two types of patron: “Rich people, and people who look rich.”

Moscow’s door policy, or “face control” as it’s known locally, is reputed to be the toughest in the world — a reaction to decades of enforced egalitarianism. So don’t even think about clubbing there unless you’re prepared to slap on the slap, squeeze into Versace and be judged on the car that drops you off.

Chaglasyan, who regards it as his mission to enlighten Moscow about global dance trends, pioneered club culture there by luring international names over on a weekly basis. DJ Sash, Fatboy Slim and Paul Oakenfold have all played there, while the resident DJs Kolya and Grad are known throughout Russia.

But the best thing about Club XIII isn’t the music or the people, but the building itself. Originally the home of one of Russia’s richest men, it had been commandeered by the Ministry of Culture and allowed to decay gently along with the Soviet Union. Chaglasyan bought it three years ago after it had been condemned and quickly turned it into Moscow’s hottest nightspot, popular not only with politicians and home-grown celebrities such as Anna Kournikova, but also with party-loving westerners.

You enter up a sweeping dark marble staircase, with inlaid marble walls adorned with bas-reliefs of cherubs. Pass through the imposing French doors and you are in the main dance area — once, doubtless, a ballroom — where stubbed-out cigarettes smoulder on the parquet, outsize balloons bounce gently off the cornicing and the twinkling lights come not courtesy of a mirror ball, but an enormous crystal chandelier. The bar that runs the length of the room serves delicious cocktails and vintage champagne in elegant coupes.

A smaller room, panelled with carved wood, is the “trip-hop acid-jazz room”, lit by sconces and favoured by model-like wallflowers and couples whispering conspiratorially on leather sofas.

Entrance fees are high — up to an eye-popping £40 — but you doubt whether Chaglasyan is making much from his venture. Partly because he regards it as more important to keep people out than to let them in. But mostly because of the vast sums spent on presentation. Every week or so, set designers from Mosfilm are brought in to revamp the interior: a Roman orgy one week will give way to a Nutcracker scene the next. Recently, a British party animal hired the whole place for an evening themed on The Master and Margarita, the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov about the arrival of the devil in communist Moscow. For that event, the entrance to the club was refashioned to resemble a grim Soviet-style apartment, through which the 150 guests had to file before entering the decadent interior.

The drawback for British clubbers at the moment is the visa requirement for entry to Russia, but there are rumours that this may change, allowing people to travel visa-free for visits of three days or less — just enough for a long party weekend.

Right now, although clubbers already come from the UK for a night’s partying, they’re usually homesick Russians. Typical is Anna, a doll-like pocket Venus in head-to-toe labels, who hails originally from the town of Samara, but has been sent by her oil-magnate father to take her A levels in Cambridge. “I fly here every month just to go out,” she says. “Cambridge nightclubs are really terrible.” It’s a long way to go for an evening out, you suggest. “Oh, yes,” she says. “But worth it, don’t you think?”

Club XIII, Building 1, 13 Myasnitskaya Ulitsa; inquiries: 007 095 927 2391