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2007-03-06T03:36:00.000-08:00

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Summer time

2006-07-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

Summer is the dead season in Moscow. The city shuts down. No theatre, no clubs. Nothing. The city is half empty. Everyone leaves until September.
I just got back from London. I was amazed by the village-like atmosphere- everything so friendly and quiet. Living in Moscow is like running a steeple-chase through a bog while being attacked by mutant rats. Some of the more aggressive rats are the traffic police. Moscow’s streets are chaos, as bad as Calcutta or Cairo. The traffic cops spend all their time taking bribes instead of keeping order. Their favourite hobby is stopping expensive looking cars and looking for some minor infringement they can ‘fine’ them for (the fine goes in their pockets). A friend of mine, a former professional racing driver who is now a successful businessman with too much money that he knows what to do with, likes to spend his evenings racing through town at 200. He doesn’t stop for the beeping traffic cops along the way. He likes to toy with them, making them chase after him through town. When he gets tired, he gives in and pulls over and pays them off. His night races cost him about 1000USD. He recounts how angry and cocky the officers are when they go over to him, but when they see him peeling off big bills they become exceedingly polite and even apologise.
Me and my business partner Natasha are far too nice and responsible to speed round town like that. We drive carefully- we just don’t have a license. It got taken away when we drove home tipsy from a club one night. So as not to go bankrupt on shelling out money to traffic cops, we pay them off with vodka. We have a 100 bottles left after our last party. We never leave home without a case. We ‘spend’ around three bottles a day for the cops. We’ve noticed that they prefer a present to money- it’s more personal that way, less sickeningly corrupt. Sometimes they even take cosmetics, to give to their wives in the evening. Bless them.

Channel 4 - 1 2 1 (blog 11)

2006-06-26T03:37:00.000-07:00

Post Cannes.

Wow what a wicked time these Russians are having all over the world. Daria's mate totally usurped me on experiential/ hedonistico/ meet the stars time/ in Cannes. I'm quite jealous. And why daria? did you not put her in touch with me? I am sure she would have loved and I mean loved to come to the MTV party at Pierre Cardin's villa. yes that was the one that I creatively directed. Love that new title- "creative director". It means I concept/ art direct/ do the vibe and my very hansome client at MTV, Mr Eazy Bailey does the nitty gritty like permissions, invites, bar and the all importante Music. I love Eazy- he has really respects what I do- Thank you Eazy.
Anyway, back to this party. Last year we partnered with Sony's Kung fu Hustle and did this total 30's chineese meets Schrager, play home at a villa in Super cannes. Houses made in super rich style in the 80's. George Clooney and liz taylor stayed there before- get the picture.
This year the now legendary MTV party was at Palais Bulles, Pierre Cardin's, litteraly palace of bubbles. No movie partner this year, so down to the ole Blonstein to come up with an idea. The house is just so amazing- I did it just about the house and the reason they built that house in the late 60's. Its a homage to the perfect circle/ the curve; and everthing we did was circular/ spotty/ dotty/ round/ oval/
spherical. we did a massive revolving lounge that turned into a dance floor. Blow up couture from gareth pugh (london's hottest catwalk sensation) cloud buster balloons. Covered the whole garden in swirled pucci carpet. Built gigantic verner panton disc chanderliers. And made our own psuedo super 8, about the villa's creators and their love of the circle and their 60's chi chi ethos. Fabulous it was and agreed by all.
Met Pierre himself, who was definately on the edge of senility, as he failed to get a sence of me at all and after a 2 min disjointed convo, turned to another fashion fan- male, I may add. I think if I had introduced him to my very gorgous boyfriend we could have discussed bias lines and geometric print till dawn. Note to myself- use Boyfriend when neccessary.
So back to our russian friend who I never met. She's a killer. I had virtually no yacht action to speak of. Failed at the post to go to Xmen and Da vinci code premiere. Didn't hang with any Spanish, Polish, American or Chineese film directors. No diamonds offered.
My easy no blag entree to all the good stuff, was with Mia, my friend who won an Oscar this year for her short film "Six Shooter". unfortunately her step dad got scary ill (he's fine now) and had to cancel. Plus Jeff, the best man I've ever been with, came out on the saturday night and the twinkle in his eye kind of squished my lust for fame and cocktails.
We went for a tres tres romantic lunch at the star's restaurant the Colomb d'or and swam with Kelly and Billy. Subdued- but counts as a celeb moment- me thinks.
So I cannot wait to go the Moscow. Yes I'm going in August to see daria, her crazy friends and my friend Tom who is taking his avant garde catering style there for a culinary explosion.
A couple of refesher lessons in how to loose it with Stars, is definately on the menu. Even if we are just practicing with the nearly shiny Russian ones!

Cannes

2006-06-09T03:39:00.000-07:00

I'm on a break in London, where I finally got to meet my blog-partner, Sarah. She had just got back from Cannes, where she organised a paty for Pierre Cardin. A friend of mine Natasha, the life and soul of many Moscow parties and blag artist extraordinaire, was also in Cannes at the same time. She went on a whim. With 500 Euros in her pocket and nowhere to stay. This is her diary.

1. My credit card is about to max out, I've 500 Euros in my pocket minus the 20 Euros for the bottle of vodka at the airport. It sits snugg beside me on the seat, waiting to start a conversation. I'm cold-shouldering it for now, but I feel it wants to tell me something.
The plane is full of Russia's so-called stars. In Moscow they act like gods, but now they are set for two weeks as nobodies. None of their films will ever make it onto a Cannes shortlist, they only make them in Russia because they're prepared to launder money for the gangsters and bureaucrats who run the country, or are happy to appear side by side with the Kremlin wannabes on their political campaigns, glitz-givers to the KGB spooks. I can sense their mood deaden with every air-mile. They seem to grow physically smaller.
Only I don’t care. Lsten, I'm a farmer's daughter from Siberia. When I grew up Cannes was something that happened in a fairy tale land beyond reality. A pair of jeans was a dream. I'd trudge through the snow and sell my soul for a pair of fake Levis. If you told me then that I would go to Cannes I'd have slapped you. Problem is, I don't have anywhere to stay when I arrive.
But still, I have a reputation to maintain here. I make the parties for these soulless pseuds. So I can't let on that I'm skint. And it's my responsibility to make sure they have fun. I improv a party on the plane. We all know this lot will never win anything at Cannes, so I organise a spoof award ceremony- everyone votes for the 'worst' actress, 'worst' costume, 'worst' nose job of the year. The winner downs a huge shot of my wonderful friend, Moskovskaya. All the shit everyone thinks about each other comes out, and everyone loves it. Soon they're all laughing and drunk. When we land, a producer friend offers to continue the party at his place. It turns out to be a massive suite. He insists I stay there, he knows if I'm there his place will become the centre of all the Russian's fun. Accomodation problem solved. I tell him that to get everyone to hang out at his parties, I'll need the right transport. He lends me his Porsche. I'm as skint as I was this morning, but now I've got transport too. All for being the life and soul of the party. Thank you Moskovskaya, thank you.

2. Cannes: sea, cherry blossom and….herring? The first party we go to is on a boat. It's a Russian party (groan!), all caviar and herring and bad vodka. All the Russian set stand around, not knowing how to behave. They always ape the way they see glamorous people in commercials. So they pose as if they're on a Martini Ad set. But Martini Ads don't give you any lines, or any character development. So they just pose for a camera that isn't there, not knowing what to do with themselves. We're the only people prepared to have fun. I get offered to be in a Busheron Konstantin shoot the next day. I agree if they can get me red-carpet tickets.
A storm breaks out, and a huge wave nearly knocks everyone over. That's the most fun to be had here. So we drive up to Duck-Up, to Bruce Willis' party. I ask Bruce: 'You're a superstar, could you get them to pour me a Mojito quicker.' 'I live here,' says Bruce, ' and it takes ages for me to get served. And they make it lousy.'

3. The next day it’s the Busheron shoot. They stuff me full of diamonds and get me to walk around town while they photo. Passers by start photoing too, thinking I’m a star. Things are going just fine. But then it turns out the red-carpet tickets were a big fib. They take the diamonds away, and I’m left ticket-less and diamond-less. So I go to the red carpet entrance, attach myself to a bunch of beautiful people, keep my head high and walk through. I make it down the red-carpet ok, but when we get to the next entrance you need tickets. So I turn back. But when I walk back down, there’s no room to leave. So I u-turn again, and go back up the red carpet. Up and down, up and down. No way out either side. In the end the bodyguards start approaching me, I push my way through and away.

3. Cannes is full of arsholes up on themselves. The bodyguards, the PR people, the agents. All puffed and awful. But if you just go up and talk to the stars without being awe-inspred, you’ll find they’re, well, nice. All the grief I got was from nobodies. Vincent Cassell, Tim Roth, Tim Burton were happy having a drink and listening to my stories about childhood in Siberia. Pedro Almadovar told me he wanted shoot me for a role. You don’t need any passes, any tickets. Just be your normal, over-confident, brash self. And you’ll be fine. Act like a star, and the stars will accept you as one of their own. As for the bodyguard who threw my camera into the pool when I was trying to photograph myself with Alicia Silverstone at the DG party- you’re a dead man. And the other bodyguard who wouldn’t let me in for two hours to the Sony gig- I bet your cock’s small. And the bodyguard who threw me out of the WB party after I had nearly persuaded everyone there I was Abramovich’s Wife- I’ll see you in hell. I hope you’ve all head of the Russian Mafia. They know where you live.

4. It all comes good on the night though. The Bousheron shoot went well, and now Chopard offer me to wear their glittery things until the end of the festival. They sponsor the event, so now I’m all ticketed up too. An old music producer I knew in Paris sees me. He wrote me off as a singer years ago- but when he sees me in my red-carpet-diamond-bodyguard glory he thinks he must have a terrible mistake, now I’m a star and he’s just some avant-garde freak trying to blag a red-carpet pass. He offers me to sing at the Techinicart concert. I insist on 10 000. The gimp agrees! I’m a lousy a singer as I was when I was busking in Paris ten years ago, but who cares, now he thinks I’m a goddess (I had to help the poor little thing with a red-carpet ticket, poor dear).
So there. That was me at Cannes. I head back to Moscow, 10 000 grand up on when I left. Which means I won’t be thrown out of my flat for a another few months. Instead of the Moskovskaya I go to the Kristall counter at Duty Free. Then I change my mind and go back to the Moskovskaya. You should be loyal to old friends. But this time I buy a two litre bottle.

the 90-s

2006-05-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

In Sarah’s last blog she said how strange she thought the Moscow I described was. Well, it’s been a pretty strange 17 years. I was four when communism came down, and this strange world, this bizarre Russian version of freedom and capitalism, is the only reality I know- and it’s more normal now than its ever been.
The Moscow of my childhood belonged to gangsters. Think about it, in the Soviet Union everyone either did time or knew someone who had. You could get put away for anything, as late as the 1960s peole were being EXECUTED for exchanging foreign currency. My boyfriend’s grandfather was put away for selling trousers on the black market. 5 years for trousers! So the culture of the country was the culture of convicts- and when communism came tumbling down the politburo gangsters were replaced with real gangsters. It was called freedom, but this was the sort of freedom which came with no responsibility, and the strongest ruled. The gangsters ruled the state and they ruled the streets. When I would walk home at night I would fake the walk of a mad girl, it was a good way to make sure no gangster followed you home and broke in. But there was comedy as well- the gangsters had no idea how to behave. So they imitated the gangsters they saw on American B-movies from the early eighties (all pink jackets and shiny shoes), and because Mexican TV serials were all the rage they did up their houses in fake marble and fake gold taps- the victory of the gangsters was also the victory of bad taste. A Chechen millionaire friend of mine was in love with Scarface- but he took it literally. He dressed like Pacino, he had a house like Pacino- he even had a bear in his garden- just like in the movie.
Wealth was relative. After nothing, something felt like everything. I remember feeling incredibly rich when my mother came home with 20 packs of milk- a real luxury when you couldn’t buy anything in the shops, this was 1991. The next day my parents took me to one of the new western-style toy-shops- I was the envy of my school. My daddy had made it as a new Russian, I was a princess. But it didn’t last long. My father lost all his money in one of Russia’s infamous pyramid schemes of the nineties- suddenly we were heavily in debt, and in a lot of trouble. My mother wouldn’t let us outside to play because she was scared gangsters might come to kidnap us. My father started hanging out with a new friend, he would dress in a blue suit and had gold teeth. Later, I would find out that he was a killer and extortionist, and that my dad was his target. His mission was to become friends with my dad, and then find out where my dad had hidden the money he still owed. But instead they just became friends and business partners.
And everyone has stories like this. With this sort of background, is it a wonder the parties are so messed up? Everyone who’s still here and still has money is a survivor, and they exercise their fears and demons from the past at the parties. Recently, a high profile civil servant (I can’t say who) threw a back to the USSR party (the civil service, the bureaucracy, rules the country now). The centre piece of the party was an open coffin with Lenin inside, and puppets of hung pioneers swayed from the ceiling. Whores came dressed as pioneer girls and all sex was conducted publicly. He himself walked around dressed up as Hitler with a massive strap on dildo. This was his response to the Soviet past, this is how we say thank you for having survived the nineties. How do your civil servants have fun?

Your last three posts

2006-04-21T03:55:00.000-07:00

Dasha,
I have just read your 3 blogs and I cannot believe what is going on in fucking Moscow.Its like Paris before the bloody revolution, let alone Russia before the revolution.I suppose the white of no money has led to the black of too much, too quick.

My family came from nowhere, a village on the Ukraine Russian border. All were chased out by pogram horseman and came to good ole London circa 1860. And since then, they built their lives on a Victorian imperialist society, through Nazi war and into 60's socialism, and through to 80's capitalism and arriving at where I am today- quirky sophistication. So I suppose the excess thing, reading it, is so surreal. Shocking even.

Now don't get me wrong I love excess, glamour, beauty, the fine things in life, but the way it's been working for me within my world, is to always have an edge; a private plan and mix up rich and poor and cool and uncool, fair and unfair and throw the whole lot in the air catching it with a lot style and uber experience.

In all that maddness, sounds like you're doing the same.good luck to you.I wanna come and see.I'll tell you more of Blonstein's world and the past later...

East is east

2006-04-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

Hello from London.
To be precise East London and the less than salubrious Brick Lane. Home of the Hoxton Homies -that can't afford to live in Hoxton or Shoreditch, loads of guys in very skinny jeans, (how do they walk?) the most ridiculas amount of fashionista japanesse this side of Tokyo, bankers in cashmere, vintage clad yummy mummies , banglideshi waiters and me (and the team).
My office is a kind of bridge which spans Dray walk. We can throw our mobile phones down from the windows when one of us forgets them. Dray walk was a sort of car park/loading bay that has now been changed into a proper car free very trendy shop and bar/deli walkway.
Brick lane was a wasteland until 1995, when Offa Zeloof and his dad brought the Old Truman Brewery, an actual beer brewery started in the 17oo's and totally boarded up at that point. Through a series of fashion shows (some of which I did) and parties and young designers and musos and web creators - he turned a white elephant into a fucking gold mine.
Anyway, I will read your lovely stuff very carefully and come back to you again with repsonses and more of the story I am going to tell you about my life here and all the wheels and cogs that spin around us.
My son of 7 wants me to go home now.
So look at my website www.blonstein.co.uk (needs some updated and buttons mending!) to tickle your fancy for now.
Sara Blonstein

Moscow high class

2006-04-09T23:55:00.000-07:00

A famous Moscow gallery owner was recently quoted as saying that this is Moscow’s Golden Age, its Dolce Vita. I’m not sure. Moscow is surely playing at having a golden age, faking a Dolce Vita. But whether it’s true is another matter.
We were sitting in Aist – the best restaurant of Arkadiy Novikov – a famous Moscow owner of restaurants. Left and right from me sat very rich and famous men and women. Or maybe they pretended that they are rich and famous…
I know lots of people for whom being in a high class society is the most important thing. And they use all their talents and all their minds to create an excellent picture of their life. Sometimes I meet young men and women who tell me they are the descendants of ancient Russian families. They always talk about their rich parents, about their private tutors and so on. Others told me that they live on Rublevka (a place were the oligarchs live) in their own houses. And some time later I usually realize the truth.
Most of the people of “ Moscow high class» have two or three lives. They look as if they are rich and famous in public places, but their real life is different. Most of them came to Moscow 5 – 10 years ago, live in small rooms in Birulevo ( Moscow working class area). Their parents were workers from the poor Russian towns and their sons and daughters had a big wish to be number 1 in Moscow. So they created a glamour life for themselves, a life full of parties, rich friends and other peoples money.
And the thing is that you can’t be a member of this society if you don’t imitate that you have everything. And if you want to make money in this society, its even more important that you fake wealth.
I remember our first appointments with our future clients. We have a friend who deals in Cartier watches and jewellery. We borrowed two watches and a bunch of rings, and persuaded a garage owner to lend us a red jaguar for the evening. We got some swish haircuts, promising to pay later. I asked an old friend who used to be a body builder to pretend he was our bodyguard. When we arrived, the client believed we were good promoters simply from the way we looked. After he left, we had to give everything back. We walked home that evening because we didn’t have any money for a cab and the tube was shut. I got home and cooked pot noodles, the only think I could afford at that time. But we got the job.

The Baltic Tea

2006-04-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

The most famous club promoter in moscow is a bald, slightly dumpy man called Gorobiy. He cruises around town in a limo accompanied by bikini-clad models. I remember when Gorobiy started out- at the first rave he made we all dressed up as huge crocodiles to dance behind the stage. He has come a long way since his crocodile days. He organised the most succesful projects in Moscow over the last few years. The clubs were moveable feasts, they would change their locations and designs each season- there was Autumn, Winter, Summer and so on. The idea was brilliant, as even the most succesful promoter in Moscow can't keep a club fashionable for longer than three months. In effect he kept the same team together, but kept on renewing the idea. His clubs tapped right into Moscow's glam psychology. He made sure that all the fashion and entertainment people were there, brought Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell from the west, made sure everyone was talking about it- and then milked the money from the oligarchs and their hangers on who were desperate to be seen with these people and for whom money is no object. The oil boys would pay tens of thousands to make sure they were in the VIP room with Naomi and the photo guy. Leto had a massive dance floor, and lodges up the walls. Dependeing on where the lodge was, you paid different money to be in it. The girls would dance below, looking up hopefully to the darkenss of the lodges where oligarchs and want-to-be oligarchs would look down on them with theatre binoculars and choose their 'of-course-I'm-not-a-whore-but-500-and-I'm-all-yours' girl for the night. Oligarch hunting is not just a sport for Putin, it's also the main activity for any clubbing girl in Moscow.
Leto was witness to hilarious nights. Moscow clubs aren't divided into different scenes. Everyone whose anyone, from whatever world, is in the same club. So oil boys party next to coked up classical conducters and hip writers. I remember a night where hundreds of oligarchs were all jumping up and down chanting a hard techno remix of a classic Russian perestroika rebel anthem: 'we want changes' chanted the Gucci-suited billionaires.
And then Gorobiy asked me and my friend if we wanted to organise a night at Leto. We decided to have it on February 23, a Russian holiday which celebrates both the birthday of Catherine the Great and the Soviet Red Army Day. We wanted to combine all these themes- our plan was to decorate the club like the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, then Red Army soldiers would storm the club on horseback and the evening would be rounded off with a duet by Catherine the Great and Lenin. My friend and business partner Natasha was to be Catherine, and she would host the evening. Gorobiy realised pretty quick that if it worked, our party would upstage all his other nights, and he was determined to fuck up our plans. He started by slashing our budget by half. This meant we had to make all the costumes and decorations ourselves. We boshed amphetamines and stayed up five nights to get everything ready. But we weren't going to make it. So everyone helped out in the end- not just our friends but even my granny was up half the night sowing the soldier's costumes. Catherine's costume we got from a classical Moscow theatre. Natasha had played Catherine there a few years back, but had been thrown out when she started sleeping with the Theatre Manager's boyfriend. So we had to steal in and borrow the costume at night. Things started to go pear shaped on the night. The stables phoned to tell us the horses were sick. So with two hours to go, I grabbed a car and drove round Moscow looking for horses. I found some which are used to give tourists rides round Red Square, I persuaded the stable boys to bring the horses to the club. We stopped all the traffic. Me in a cab directing a dozen horses across central Moscow. We got to the club just as the Bentleys and Porsches were driving up. The guests were awe-struck- they had just arrived in the middle of the Russian Revolution. The actors playing the soldiers made a huge bonfire at the entrance. We had given them a lot of vodka to keep warm. They had drunk too much, and were getting far too much into their roles- 'death to the bourgois' they shouted at the oil boys and their model girlfriends, who had all paid thousands to be here. It could have gone either way, but the guests got into it and started shouting communist slogans too. It turns out billionaires can do irony.
Inside, our Lenin was getting carried away too, and was reading communist speeches through the PA. Catherine tried to shut him up, but he just wouldn't stop. Catherine the Great and Lenin brawled on the stage. Then the soldiers charged onto the dancefloor on horseback. But the guests loved it, and started ripping off their clothes so they could dress up as Red Army soldiers too. Then came the second charge of several dozen female soldiers. They were all strippers, and they jumped off their horses, stripped down to their G-Strings and jumped to dance on the bars.
The night was a great success. Gorobiy was upstaged. Our career was launched.
… the other night I went to Gorobiy's new place, Dhiaghalev. A bad brit-pop band whined in the corner. The guests stood around bored. Gorobiy's magic is wearing thin…

http://www.simonproduction.com/flashindex.html (look for the video "Baltic Tea")

hello from russia

2006-03-30T07:23:00.000-08:00

My name is Dasha. I live in Moscow. Moscow is therichest, poorest, most immoral, most ambitious city inthe world. This is where I live and work. Moscow isfull of beggars. And it is full of very, very veryrich people. The ones who come over to England and buycounties, football clubs, towns. Well, there are lotsof them in Moscow. And they all have a lot of money tospend. And no idea how to. I'm here to help....I started all this over a year ago. It was a blackstripe in my life when my friend asked me to workwith her and to start our own business. She proposedme to make our own events management agencyand to make big events for Russian rich people. We named our company SN productions. I found myself in a strange world of Moscow glamour life. Here are its main characters:
Oligarhs – very rich Russian men (like Abramovich, Deripaska and so on)Pseudo-oligarchs: Men who want to seem as if they are oligarhs. They usually wear pastel jumpers and have very dark skin because they visit the solarium three times aweek.
Livretki – young girls who come to the party to find an oligarh. But usually they find pseudo-oligarchs , because all the oligarhs already have wives. This young ladies commonly made one or two plastic operations (on their lips and one on their breasts), they have blond hair, they like brands like DolceGabbana, Gucci, Prada. They also have brown skin. They are not prostitutes but they will try to get money from their pastel-cladsuitors.
Freaks – young men and woman that looks like theyare the heroes of the film Liquid Sky.
Celebrities – Russian pop stars who try to act theirselves as if they are Hollywood stars.
Russian people who are sickk and tired fromMoscow night life but come to the parties because there is no alternative in Moscow. They always complain that there is no good night life or that all the good parties were two years ago.
And the last group – the promoters that organize parties and the owners of the clubs. Those people mix all this groups in different proportions and earn big money on this people.
Our first party was a party in a famous Russian restaurant. We had never done anything before. The owner gave us 3000 USD to go organise a St ValentinesDay Party. It was a pittance, but before we knew it wehad spent almost all of it on new clothes. We only had1000 for the party. And we were meant to bringcelebrities. So my friend decided to pretend she was aFrench pop star with Russian roots who had come hometo find her heritage. She turned up in a ballgown witha ridiculous hat, spoke Russian with a French accent.Our friend dressed up as her bouncer to make her lookmore convincing. The guests fell for it. They believedthe disguise. She spent the evening reciting Russianpoetry, and sighing over the Russian roots she wantedto find. This was not a success. The guests found itdull and began to ignore her. She got drunk and angry'Hey,' she shouted, 'you all probably want me to singMurka, that's your style!' she screamed. Murka is theRussian bandit's anthem. Most of the guests wereformer bandits. But now they all wore Armani anddidn't like being reminded about their shady past. Theplace fell quiet. We were chased out. After that, however, things got better for us...

Welcome

2006-03-21T07:07:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Channel 4's 121 blog.