Guillermo Erades - Back to Moscow

‘HERE’S A QUESTION,’ COLIN SAYS. ‘If you had to choose only one club to go to for the rest of your time in Moscow, the one place you’re allowed to visit, which one would you choose?’

‘Only one?’ I ask.

‘Only one. You could not get into any other club. The only place for you to get drunk and meet dyevs.’

‘Propaganda.’

Colin takes a long sip and finishes his Long Island iced tea. His eyes are shiny, his half-smile wider than usual. ‘Come on, you must be kidding.’

‘I’m not,’ I say. ‘You know I like Propaganda.’

It’s Friday night and the Real McCoy is packed. The air is hot, shirts are sweaty. The windows by the entrance are coated in a layer of condensation. We are on our third Long Island iced tea, in good spirits.

‘Sure,’ Colin says, ‘we all like Propaganda, but, come on, before McCoy? Be serious, man. We’ve met so many nice dyevs in here.’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I say. ‘I really like the McCoy. What the fuck, I love the McCoy. Moscow wouldn’t be the same without it. But the McCoy would probably be my second choice. Or my third, after Karma. If you ask for one single club, for me it’s Propaganda.’

Colin points up at two dyevs dancing on top of the bar, their high heels pounding away next to my drink. ‘You don’t get this atmosphere in Propaganda, the McCoy is always a feast. This is the real Moscow, man. Wild and fucking honest!’

At that moment, as if to prove Colin’s point, the two dyevs, who are wearing short skirts and leather boots, start kissing each other. People around us raise their arms and cheer.

‘There’re plenty of hot dyevs in Propaganda,’ Colin says, ‘I give you that. The difference is, dyevs go to Propaganda to be seen, the Real McCoy they come to to get laid.’

‘For an easy score,’ I say, ‘the Real McCoy is unbeatable. It totally deserves its three fuckies. But think of all the great nights we had in Propaganda. Propaganda’s a Moscow legend.’

Colin is now ogling the dyevs dancing on the bar. ‘We had great nights in Propaganda,’ he says. ‘Not any more. Now it’s going all pafosni and exclusivni like the rest of the city. These days you walk in and you could be in any club in the world. It’s been sanitised, Westernised. If that’s the type of club you enjoy, you may as well go back home. Propaganda has lost the wildness of the real Moscow. If you think about it, how many Prop dyevs have you fucked lately?’

‘I met Lena in Propaganda.’

‘Yeah, all right, but how many new dyevs? You met Lena Propaganda ages ago, soon after you arrived. She doesn’t count. There is nothing like McCoy, man.’

Colin leaves the glass on the bar and — grabbing the leather boot of one of the dyevs — points at it so that she is careful not to kick it. The dyev looks down at us and smiles.

The music is now deafening.

‘Remember that dyev I met last week in Zeppelin?’ Colin asks. He’s sweating, rolling up the sleeves of his silky blue shirt.

‘The one with the big nose?’

‘But great legs, right?’

‘If you say so.’

I wave at the waiter and point at our empty glasses. He looks up and acknowledges my order.

‘So I met her on Tuesday. What a bitch!’

‘She did look bitchy,’ I say.

‘We’d agreed to meet in Teatralnaya, outside the Bolshoi. I came straight from the gym, so I was carrying my sports bag, and guess what the first thing this bitch said when she saw me was, before hello or anything? “You are not bringing that ugly bag with us, are you?”’

‘Your sports bag?’

‘Yeah, my fucking sports bag.’

‘Why would she give a shit?’

‘Fuck knows,’ Colin says.

The waiter places two new glasses between the leather boots of the dancing dyevs, fills them with crushed ice and various shots. He then tops up the glasses with coke from a hose and a splash of lime juice. I pay for the round, clink my glass with Colin’s and take a sip. The air feels balmier now, lacking oxygen. I welcome the freshness of the drink.

‘These drinks are loaded,’ I say.

‘Try getting a Long Island like this in Propaganda. These are the best drinks in town, I tell you. Anyway, so the dyev told me something about how carrying a sports bag around is so working class, not kulturno in Moscow.’

‘What the fuck.’

‘I know,’ Colin says. ‘I told her I’d just been to the gym and I had nowhere to leave the bag. So we walked up Petrovka and I took her to this new café on the corner with Stoleshnikov, you know, the new place with white tables and white chandeliers and the hot waitresses dressed in black. All pafosni and nice, right?’

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I like it.’

‘This bitch didn’t. She asked me why I’m taking her to a café and not to a restaurant when I had promised to take her to a restaurant.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Fuck knows. I told her, “Listen, there’s nice food in here and a good atmosphere,” but she was all whiny because of my working-class bag and because I wasn’t taking her to a real restaurant. Then we get the menu and the bitch starts complaining about the food. She orders a glass of French champagne, which was of course the most expensive item she could find on the menu.’

‘Classic,’ I say. ‘What did you do?’

‘Wait.’ Colin drinks from his Long Island. ‘I told her I’d go home quickly to drop my bag and get changed, and be back in fifteen minutes to take her to a proper restaurant. She seemed happy with that. So I go outside, take a taxi and, when I’m on my way home, I write her a text telling her to go fuck herself because I’m not coming back and I don’t want to see her ever again.’

‘Well done, man, that’s great.’ I slap Colin’s back. ‘You made her pay for her own champagne.’

‘Not really,’ Colin says, shaking his head. ‘I did pay the bill on the way out. She was probably not carrying any cash. Anyway, you should write about this in your PhD, or if you ever write your book about Moscow. I think it’s very representative of the new Russia.’

A popular Russian song from the 1980s comes on. Everyone in the club is now singing along and dancing. People gather, forming a circle, arms around each other, revolving around the dance floor.

‘The city is changing fast,’ Colin shouts in my ear. ‘Not what it used to be. Remember when you could take a dyev to McDonald’s and expect to get laid in return?’

‘Come on, it was never like that.’

‘It was, maybe before you arrived. Things are no longer the same, the good times will soon be over. One day we’ll look back on this time and realise that we got to live in this special historical moment. We’re witnessing the disintegration of an entire society. We’re in the midst of a social and sexual revolution. Moscow is a jungle, man. People just care about getting rich and getting laid. Money and sex. It’s all new to them.’

I take a sip of my drink. ‘Money, perhaps. But they must have fucked during soviet times.’

The ring of bouncing people, reaching critical mass, surges towards the bar, a human tornado razing everything in its path. To avoid a collision, Colin and I have to step back. A drunk girl is now on the floor, her skirt halfway up her waist, a long rip in her tights. Colin helps her to her feet. She laughs, says spasibo and, singing along, rejoins the crowd.

Colin is holding his glass up in the air, so as not to spill it over his silky shirt. ‘In soviet times they only fucked for reproduction purposes,’ he says. ‘Free sex is one of those things brought by the perestroika. That’s why Russians embraced the uncertainty of political change, because at least they were getting some. Hence the Duck.’