Salon Wanderlust | A midsummer night's bacchanal in Moscow

[Salon Wanderlust: Travel with a passion]

T A B L E_T A L K
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R E C E N T L Y
Coming down
By Dwight Garner
For the first time, Jon Krakauer talks about the bitter controversy swirling around "Into Thin Air"
(08/03/98)
Mondo Weirdo
The deep
A chance encounter with a seven-foot shark
(07/31/98)
Tallest Tree epiphany
By Simon Firth
A father and son make a rainy redwood pilgrimage
(07/30/98)
England's decadent delights
By Douglas Cruickshank
Staying at a country castle
(07/29/98)
Lions and tigers are PC, oh my!
By Sally Eckhoff
Disney goes PC at its new theme park
(07/28/98)

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Wanderlust Feature archives

___a midsummer night's
________bacchanal in moscow
Inhibitions -- and underclothes -- are tossed into the sweating air on Ladies Night at the Hungry Duck Bar and Grill.
BY JEFFREY TAYLER | Every year on June 21, the Earth, careening around the oval track of its orbit, turns lopsided and tips its northern pole to the sun. The solstice means little to ever-sweaty tribesmen in the Congo or perpetually overheated headhunters in the Amazon, but for Russians who have sat through seven-month winters indoors, the advent of summer heralds no less than a liberation, a release from musty flats, a rush to recreate and procreate in a flood of light and warmth. For as surely as the solstice of Pan arrives, ushering in days with 21 hours of sun, it will depart, and in its place six months later its Hadean counterpart will show up to drag the whole benighted Motherland into the dumps.
One recent midsummer afternoon in Moscow, my Dutch friend -- let him here be known as Serge -- and I were talking on the phone, casting around for ideas on how to pass the evening. Sandwiching the receiver between jaw and shoulder, I held before me the entertainment section of a local newspaper and scrutinized its ho-hum offerings -- night life in the Russian capital, we both agreed, has become duller and more predictable over the past year. We were on the point of giving up the search when I lit upon an advertisement for Ladies Night at the Hungry Duck Bar and Grill: From 7 o'clock until 9, free alcohol for women, male strippers and no male customers. At 9 the strippers would end their act and men would be allowed in. I proposed we check it out -- my first visit to the Duck a year earlier had been pretty wild, and anyway, there was nothing else to do. Serge huffed: "What kind of loser would go to such a thing?" But having nothing better to offer himself, he agreed.
It was hot, hotter than anything on record in Moscow for the past century. Just before 9, I arrived at the iron gates outside the Duck, wilted and wet and cursing the damnably still-radiant sun. Minutes later, Serge sauntered up in Cartier and Versace, presenting the very picture of sang-froid, of cool moneyed ease and European nonchalance -- 40 years old, slender and wealthy, there was nothing he couldn't afford to do, nothing he particularly wanted to do that he hadn't already done and little he got worked up over. Even the heat had barely dampened his repose.
We looked at the line of men forming outside the Duck's door. Serge shook his head.
"A bunch of losers, just like I thought."
"You're so negative. I don't orient myself by those around me," I said, and got in line behind the assembly of beet farmers, borsht-brewers, Moscow State dropouts, halfway-house inmates and pimple-picking accountants in horn-rims. For some reason the guard motioned us inside ahead of them; we paid the cover charge and headed up the stairs.
As we ascended we heard the "Titanic" theme song playing, but feminine shrieks drowned it out. Past us stumbled shoeless teeny-boppers carrying sloshing cups of beer, their blouses sodden and translucent, their lipstick awry and bras askew.
Serge paused and cast me a sidelong look of surprise. The striptease show was supposed to have ended already.
Ahead of us, at the end of the corridor, in the Duck's redwood-paneled main room, some 200 young women, mostly teens, were facing stageward (there was a stage inside the rectangular bar runway), howling and hooting. Some had disrobed to their bras and were waving their shirts above their heads. A few, in fact, were waving their very bras, their breasts doing Hula-Hoop loops and spinning out sweat in centrifugal circles. It must have been 110 degrees in there.
N E X T+P A G E | Live sex acts of the proletariat
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM BOWER


	T A B L E_T A L K Do you go nutso for wild mushrooms? Discuss your journeys in search of fungus perfection in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Coming down By Dwight Garner For the first time, Jon Krakauer talks about the bitter controversy swirling around "Into Thin Air" (08/03/98) Mondo Weirdo The deep A chance encounter with a seven-foot shark (07/31/98) Tallest Tree epiphany By Simon Firth A father and son make a rainy redwood pilgrimage (07/30/98) England's decadent delights By Douglas Cruickshank Staying at a country castle (07/29/98) Lions and tigers are PC, oh my! By Sally Eckhoff Disney goes PC at its new theme park (07/28/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives		___a midsummer night's ________bacchanal in moscow Inhibitions -- and underclothes -- are tossed into the sweating air on Ladies Night at the Hungry Duck Bar and Grill. BY JEFFREY TAYLER \| Every year on June 21, the Earth, careening around the oval track of its orbit, turns lopsided and tips its northern pole to the sun. The solstice means little to ever-sweaty tribesmen in the Congo or perpetually overheated headhunters in the Amazon, but for Russians who have sat through seven-month winters indoors, the advent of summer heralds no less than a liberation, a release from musty flats, a rush to recreate and procreate in a flood of light and warmth. For as surely as the solstice of Pan arrives, ushering in days with 21 hours of sun, it will depart, and in its place six months later its Hadean counterpart will show up to drag the whole benighted Motherland into the dumps. One recent midsummer afternoon in Moscow, my Dutch friend -- let him here be known as Serge -- and I were talking on the phone, casting around for ideas on how to pass the evening. Sandwiching the receiver between jaw and shoulder, I held before me the entertainment section of a local newspaper and scrutinized its ho-hum offerings -- night life in the Russian capital, we both agreed, has become duller and more predictable over the past year. We were on the point of giving up the search when I lit upon an advertisement for Ladies Night at the Hungry Duck Bar and Grill: From 7 o'clock until 9, free alcohol for women, male strippers and no male customers. At 9 the strippers would end their act and men would be allowed in. I proposed we check it out -- my first visit to the Duck a year earlier had been pretty wild, and anyway, there was nothing else to do. Serge huffed: "What kind of loser would go to such a thing?" But having nothing better to offer himself, he agreed. It was hot, hotter than anything on record in Moscow for the past century. Just before 9, I arrived at the iron gates outside the Duck, wilted and wet and cursing the damnably still-radiant sun. Minutes later, Serge sauntered up in Cartier and Versace, presenting the very picture of sang-froid, of cool moneyed ease and European nonchalance -- 40 years old, slender and wealthy, there was nothing he couldn't afford to do, nothing he particularly wanted to do that he hadn't already done and little he got worked up over. Even the heat had barely dampened his repose. We looked at the line of men forming outside the Duck's door. Serge shook his head. "A bunch of losers, just like I thought." "You're so negative. I don't orient myself by those around me," I said, and got in line behind the assembly of beet farmers, borsht-brewers, Moscow State dropouts, halfway-house inmates and pimple-picking accountants in horn-rims. For some reason the guard motioned us inside ahead of them; we paid the cover charge and headed up the stairs. As we ascended we heard the "Titanic" theme song playing, but feminine shrieks drowned it out. Past us stumbled shoeless teeny-boppers carrying sloshing cups of beer, their blouses sodden and translucent, their lipstick awry and bras askew. Serge paused and cast me a sidelong look of surprise. The striptease show was supposed to have ended already. Ahead of us, at the end of the corridor, in the Duck's redwood-paneled main room, some 200 young women, mostly teens, were facing stageward (there was a stage inside the rectangular bar runway), howling and hooting. Some had disrobed to their bras and were waving their shirts above their heads. A few, in fact, were waving their very bras, their breasts doing Hula-Hoop loops and spinning out sweat in centrifugal circles. It must have been 110 degrees in there. N E X T+P A G E \| Live sex acts of the proletariat ILLUSTRATION BY TIM BOWER