Recently I visited Moscow after five years away. The city, which looked different and strange, impressed me by its ability to change. My days back in Russia were divided between official meetings, hours wasted in traffic jams, and nights spent with old friends who tried to show me the best of Moscow nightlife.
On my first free evening, I was invited to a place called “Shinok.” The restaurant had many of the traits found in ethnic restaurants everywhere. Different bits of kitsch, this time Ukrainian, were richly represented. But the interior decoration had one unique element – an artificial wall with windows separating a part of the restaurant hall. Behind the wall was a stage set of a village yard.
A real cow, as well as chickens and geese populated that ersatz farmyard. At times an old woman in traditional dress appeared to feed the animals. Visitors enjoying borscht and pirogi observed her efforts with satisfaction. “She works for the restaurant,” my acquaintance explained. “She feeds animals and sits in the yard to create the rustic ambiance.”
Shinok was just an introduction to today’s new wave of Moscow restaurant culture. A few days later, I visited “The White Sun of the Desert,” another ethnic hangout. The White Sun existed in Soviet times. Back then, it was called “Uzbekistan” and was nothing more than an obligatory culinary demonstration of the supposedly unbreakable union of the USSR’s fifteen fraternal republics.
Although the restaurant interior had completely changed since then, its decorative themes remained the same. Nowadays, however, the establishment is named after a popular Soviet borscht-western (or “eastern”) filmed in 1969 and set in Central Asia during the 1919 Civil War. The restaurant is decorated not only with oriental carpets, but with life-size figures of the movie’s heroes firing machine guns or sitting on crates of dynamite. This Soviet “orientalism” is reinforced by pretty waitresses dressed in sexy outfits more inspired by the Arabian Nights than by any Central Asian reality – then or now.
But the Soviet past, not ethnic motifs, are the biggest element in contemporary Muscovite restaurant design. The club-restaurant “Major Pronin:” is conveniently located in the vicinity of the KGB-FSB headquarters. It is named after the hero of bad Soviet-era spy novels, a figure who was also the butt of many underground jokes.
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The restaurant’s interior is decorated with various pieces of espionage equipment. But the main attraction is a shooting gallery where patrons can test their skills between courses. Targets depicting serial killers and drug dealers have mottos like “Save a woman” or “Save a boy” on them. In the middle of the wall is a target representing New York’s World Trade Center being approached by an aircraft, with the inscription “Save America.”
A new club called “Zone” – Russian slang for a concentration camp – is designed to reproduce the feeling of gulag life. Barking Alsatian dogs, stern guards, and waiters dressed in inmate uniforms work hard to recreate the gulag’s sinister atmosphere.
Russian literature is not forgotten. If the restaurant “Pushkin” on Tverskoy Boulevard not far from the monument to the great Russian poet is designed to recreate the “aristocratic atmosphere” of the early nineteenth century, the combined bar and diner called “Gogol” on Stoleshnikov Lane is an attempt to recreate a vanished Soviet institution called “rumochnaia.” A “rumka” is a vodka glass from which exhausted proletarians could revive themselves. Of course “rumochnaia” had nothing in common with Nikolai Gogol, but the establishment named after the famous writer does have a skating rink that is used once a day by a man dressed up as Gogol.
After my return to Washington, I had a dinner with an American politician who had just visited Saint Petersburg. As a special honor, his Russian hosts organized an excursion to Strelna, the “Russian Versailles,” which was recently restored from ruin to become the Petersburg residence of President Vladimir Putin.
The palace didn’t impress the American. The amount of marble used for renovation seemed excessive, and the understanding of what constitutes luxury appeared to correspond to the standards of a Holiday Inn. The American’s excited Russian hosts asked him constantly for his opinion of the palace. Throughout the tour, the American answered with polite exclamations like “exquisite” or “striking.”
Finally, they reached the attic. At last, the American was excited. The attic of the presidential residence was designed as a belly of the seventeenth-century ship. “The last time I saw something like this was in a Hamburg beer hall in the 1960’s,” the politician told me.
How perfect, I thought, as I imagined Russia’s president climbing the stairs to the attic of his palace to play the role of Peter the Great. Like the customers in that Ukrainian-style village restaurant, perhaps Putin found his attic ark reassuring in some unconscious way. A historical wave beyond his control had lifted the former KGB lieutenant colonel from out of the shadows to the pinnacle of power. But fate might also just as suddenly wash him away. What could be better than to have an ark at hand if one day the political tides turn?
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The escalating war in the Middle East must be understood in a broader context. The fact that the Iranian regime felt emboldened to risk a direct strike on Israel attests to a changing world order in which Western power is increasingly open to challenge.
considers the implications of Iran’s unprecedented decision to launch a direct strike on Israeli territory.
Recently I visited Moscow after five years away. The city, which looked different and strange, impressed me by its ability to change. My days back in Russia were divided between official meetings, hours wasted in traffic jams, and nights spent with old friends who tried to show me the best of Moscow nightlife.
On my first free evening, I was invited to a place called “Shinok.” The restaurant had many of the traits found in ethnic restaurants everywhere. Different bits of kitsch, this time Ukrainian, were richly represented. But the interior decoration had one unique element – an artificial wall with windows separating a part of the restaurant hall. Behind the wall was a stage set of a village yard.
A real cow, as well as chickens and geese populated that ersatz farmyard. At times an old woman in traditional dress appeared to feed the animals. Visitors enjoying borscht and pirogi observed her efforts with satisfaction. “She works for the restaurant,” my acquaintance explained. “She feeds animals and sits in the yard to create the rustic ambiance.”
Shinok was just an introduction to today’s new wave of Moscow restaurant culture. A few days later, I visited “The White Sun of the Desert,” another ethnic hangout. The White Sun existed in Soviet times. Back then, it was called “Uzbekistan” and was nothing more than an obligatory culinary demonstration of the supposedly unbreakable union of the USSR’s fifteen fraternal republics.
Although the restaurant interior had completely changed since then, its decorative themes remained the same. Nowadays, however, the establishment is named after a popular Soviet borscht-western (or “eastern”) filmed in 1969 and set in Central Asia during the 1919 Civil War. The restaurant is decorated not only with oriental carpets, but with life-size figures of the movie’s heroes firing machine guns or sitting on crates of dynamite. This Soviet “orientalism” is reinforced by pretty waitresses dressed in sexy outfits more inspired by the Arabian Nights than by any Central Asian reality – then or now.
But the Soviet past, not ethnic motifs, are the biggest element in contemporary Muscovite restaurant design. The club-restaurant “Major Pronin:” is conveniently located in the vicinity of the KGB-FSB headquarters. It is named after the hero of bad Soviet-era spy novels, a figure who was also the butt of many underground jokes.
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Access every new PS commentary, our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content – including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More – and the full PS archive.
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The restaurant’s interior is decorated with various pieces of espionage equipment. But the main attraction is a shooting gallery where patrons can test their skills between courses. Targets depicting serial killers and drug dealers have mottos like “Save a woman” or “Save a boy” on them. In the middle of the wall is a target representing New York’s World Trade Center being approached by an aircraft, with the inscription “Save America.”
A new club called “Zone” – Russian slang for a concentration camp – is designed to reproduce the feeling of gulag life. Barking Alsatian dogs, stern guards, and waiters dressed in inmate uniforms work hard to recreate the gulag’s sinister atmosphere.
Russian literature is not forgotten. If the restaurant “Pushkin” on Tverskoy Boulevard not far from the monument to the great Russian poet is designed to recreate the “aristocratic atmosphere” of the early nineteenth century, the combined bar and diner called “Gogol” on Stoleshnikov Lane is an attempt to recreate a vanished Soviet institution called “rumochnaia.” A “rumka” is a vodka glass from which exhausted proletarians could revive themselves. Of course “rumochnaia” had nothing in common with Nikolai Gogol, but the establishment named after the famous writer does have a skating rink that is used once a day by a man dressed up as Gogol.
After my return to Washington, I had a dinner with an American politician who had just visited Saint Petersburg. As a special honor, his Russian hosts organized an excursion to Strelna, the “Russian Versailles,” which was recently restored from ruin to become the Petersburg residence of President Vladimir Putin.
The palace didn’t impress the American. The amount of marble used for renovation seemed excessive, and the understanding of what constitutes luxury appeared to correspond to the standards of a Holiday Inn. The American’s excited Russian hosts asked him constantly for his opinion of the palace. Throughout the tour, the American answered with polite exclamations like “exquisite” or “striking.”
Finally, they reached the attic. At last, the American was excited. The attic of the presidential residence was designed as a belly of the seventeenth-century ship. “The last time I saw something like this was in a Hamburg beer hall in the 1960’s,” the politician told me.
How perfect, I thought, as I imagined Russia’s president climbing the stairs to the attic of his palace to play the role of Peter the Great. Like the customers in that Ukrainian-style village restaurant, perhaps Putin found his attic ark reassuring in some unconscious way. A historical wave beyond his control had lifted the former KGB lieutenant colonel from out of the shadows to the pinnacle of power. But fate might also just as suddenly wash him away. What could be better than to have an ark at hand if one day the political tides turn?
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