Moscow – Generation P: Edward Crabtree's blog.

SHAM ROCK TO SOME: YULIA SEMINA LIVE AT HARRAT’S PUB KARAGANDA KAZAKHSTAN.

I went to an `Irish pub` to watch an acoustic performer: what was I thinking of?

On this slushy and already inky end of November I amble up Nurken Abdirov Ulitsa. This is sort of Karaganda’s Oxford Street and I pass the coloured lights of pizza houses, Georgian and Korean restaurants and various shopfronts on the way to my destination.

`Are you here for the kvis?` a young lady asks me as I enter. After a double take I tell here that I am here early for the Yulia Semina concert and fumble around for my ticket. However, she just directs me to the bar.

Harrat’s Irish Pub in Karaganda offers a wide range of corporate beers but, as it is my first time here, I decide on the on the Harrat’s own house beer. At 2,000 tenge this is of average price and turns out to be a so-so lager-beer. I make a mental note to graduate to Starapromen next time.

I sense a lived-in feel to this pub even though it only threw its doors open last April. No doubt this impression is given with studious care. There are many joke memes, film posters, beer mats and so on arranged about the place and mostly in the English language, as well as the regulation paper currencies from around the world pinned on the wall behind the bar.

Global outreach.

`Immerse yourself in the unforgettable atmosphere of a real Irish pub` promises the Harrat’s Irish Pub website of their own venues. This pub, spacious, pristine and somehow solid has more of a feel of the sort of establishment that sprung up in the cities of Britain in the early Nineties. Nevertheless `Irish-pub` has now become such a familiar collocation – like `Italian restaurant` say – that it seems a bit churlish to questions its meaning.

Harrat’s Irish Pubs – the largest Irish Pub chain in the world -are very far from being British. Igor Kokourov first set one up in Irkutsk, Russia, of all places in 2009. Now its venues have spread out to the rest of Russia (there are several in Moscow), Kazakhstan (there was also one in Almaty, which I avoided when I was there), Kyrgystan, Hungary, Belarus, Cyprus, and even America – but none in Ireland, of course.

Kokourov chose the `Irish` theme because it suggested something `classical`. He aimed to project an ethos of `cosy chaos` and to reach out to ` 20 to 40-year-olds who like quality music, quality products, are cheerful, not aggressive, understand jokes and don’t wear Adidas`. (Cia. Ru, February 26^th 2020) No gopniks, then.

Perhaps it was such a demographic which was immersed in the slick quiz which had pop music related questions projected onto the TV screens dotted around the place.

As I sit at the bar killing time this pub quiz crowd is replaced bit by bit by slightly older and more sober groups of people, all pushing forty or older. Numbering about a hundred, these are my fellow spectators and amongst them I see no children, nor college kids.

Not the target market.

Confession time: I am only here because an advert for it appeared on my social media feed, nothing else was happening and I needed some copy.

The fact is that unplugged music, solo acoustic in particular, leaves me cold. When it comes to rock and pop, I really relish in the orchestral mash up of mingled and treated and amplified strings, drums and keyboards. Without that, the sound is altogether too spartan and sequestered for me. So, I had no high expectations as to what about to transpire..

Local heroes.

Yulia Semina consists of the lead vocalist and songwriter of the Kazakh band Anomaliya. Formed in Astana 21-years-ago this pop-rock four piece have two albums to their name and numerous singles. Quite early in their career they built up a fanbase in their own country, so much so that the entertainment store corporation Meloman became their sponsors. Appearances at Russian festivals followed and punters came to know them there too. By 2006 they even found themselves touring with the legendary Noiche Snapeiri (the Night Snipers).

ANOMALIYA back in their heyday {Genius.com]

Like Gorod 312 before them, and many a band for that matter, they have since relocated to the big apple of Moscow.

Their output could be placed in the same broad pigeonhole as Zemfira, albeit without the spiky brilliance of that Russian artist.

Pleasant host.

Semina finally arrives at around 7:30. She looks fresh-faced and relaxed, is about the same age bracket as her audience and donned in the new nondescript global casual style. She sits cross legged on a stool on the floor level stage before us.

She begins with a remark about having found the streets of Karaganda to be pretty as she strolled around them earlier then starts.

There are fast paced robust rocky numbers and some more reflective downbeat ones. Without doubt she has a fine voice: penetrating, clear and with quite a range. Yet to me it’s all strum-strum-strum – warble in a high register strum-strum-strum – warble on a low register and repeat.

I have to say that the prejudices that I took with me about acoustic solo sets remain not just intact but are reinforced. I find myself weaving my way through the onlookers back to the comfort of the bar.

There is some variety when a technical hitch stops the show. A rather nervous guy in a regulation pony tail arrives onstage to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and then it all begins again.

The food scoffing, inebriated crowd are getting what they came for however and join in some of the songs. Her set lasts about an hour twenty minutes, which is a long time to play solo without so much as a bottle of Borjomi water at hand so respect to her for that. I just wait for the conclusion, when the crowd will chant `Spasiba! Spasiba! `

This comes after a significant sign off from Semina when she plays a – fittingly Irish – cover of a famous Cranberries song. The song is `Zombies`, known for its antiwar content with its mention of `with their guns and their bombs`. I also realise then that the vocal style here, that moody sincerity, is very much the one that Semina seems to be aiming at, but not fully reaching.

The beer has not worked and I make my way out into the night to be ready for the first day of winter tomorrow. Nobody has asked to see my ticket.

Lead image: ticketon.kz

THE WINDS OF PEACE.

More and more leaders and commentators are seeking a diplomatic endgame to the tragic Russo-Ukrainian war. Can this still be achieved?

The Slav versus Slav civil war known as the Russo-Ukraine conflict is reaching its third year. To gauge the toll of life so far is not so easy. Wikipedia puts it at 50, 000 people (which does not include those injured). For the Russians the figure already exceeds those lost in Afghanistan or Chechnya.

Meanwhile some 30% of Ukraine, including its protected areas, have been contaminated with landmines and unexploded ordnance.

Should you step back and take a long view of the whole debacle, Phaedrus’s phrase `two bald men fighting over a comb` springs to mind.

The prospect of Russia conquering the whole of Ukraine seems like a pipe dream. Even were it achieved it would require Russia to then govern a nation full of saboteurs and endless threat of NATO incursions, as well as increased dependence on China.

On Ukraine’s side, they will never be accepted as a member of NATO while they are at war with such a large power. Nor is Ukraine considered by the European Union to be at the right stage of political development to be welcomed into the fold.

Yet still the prevailing mantra of most commentary in Western Europe is that we must provide Ukraine with military backing for `as long as it takes` (whatever that even means).

Jens Stoltenberg – NATO Secretary General and a sort of Norwegian Tony Blair -thinks he knows. He has advised us that Europe `must be prepared for a decade of war` (BBC, 8^th July 2024).

How prepared are we though?

War sceptics.

Malevich’s Black Square – which is used as a meme by anti-war Russians [fruitnice.ru]

A recent poll conducted by the European Commission of Foreign Relations in twelve European countries in January of this year found that only 10% of people believed that Ukraine will be the victor. This figure may have changed a bit since the incursions into Kursk (of which later) but a more significant finding is that 37% of respondents take the view that the war can only end through diplomatic negotiations. Meanwhile in Ukraine – as reported by the Kyiv Independent this July 15^th– 44% of the public think the time is right for such negotiations.

Some commentators make comparisons with the Finland Winter war of 1939 to 1940 where Finland won lasting autonomy by conceding 9% of its territory to the Soviets. Even a seasoned diplomat like Henry Kissinger recommended Ukraine to consider a similar option.

Green shoots of sanity.

In the infamous interview with Tucker Carlson of February 11^th February this year, Putin stated that Putin would recognize an independent Ukraine if only it were not hostile to Russia. We are, he said, ready for negotiations. This claim would later be reinforced by a statement by Dmitry Peskov on August 1^st (RIA Novosti, August 4^th, 2024).

At around the same time the Eurasian Daily informed us that Andrei Yermak, Head of the Office of Zelensky said:

`We need to end this conflict` and went on to propose that peace talks `could take place in the countries of the global south` (August 2^nd, 2024).

The much-loved Russian vlogger Konstantin Samailov of Inside Russia recently broadcast a session titled `Peace is coming`. In this address he made a number of observations about the economic bind that Russia now finds itself in. He also suggested that Russian society is ditching its `war marketing` and that the pro-war messaging from the mass media has begun to mellow in favour of a `new narrative conditioning`.

Opinion formers step up.

In Britain, signs have also appeared indicating a sea change among the intelligentsia.

Emma Ashford works as a Senior Fellow for the Re-imaging U.S Grand Strategy in Washington. In a piece for The Guardian (22^nd April 2024) called `Did Boris Johnson Really Sabotage Peace Between Russia and Ukraine? ` she looks at the spring talks in Istanbul that occurred in 2022. She concludes that while there was no deal in existence to be signed Russia was ready for compromise. She concludes:

`If Western policy makers can step in and persuade Ukrainian leaders to fight on in 2022, they can offer advice about entering into negotiations in 2024 and beyond`.

On similar lines, the long-standing journalist Simon Jenkins, writing for the same paper, wrote an opinion pieced called `Farage’s Ukraine Comments Were Not Offensive`. This began with a reference to the loquacious leader of the conservative Reform Party in the U.K who disconcerted some by daring to suggest that Russia and Ukraine should sit down and (quoting his hero) `Jaw-jaw rather than war-war` (Churchill).

Jenkins, whose political orientation is very different from Farage’s agrees with him on this issue:

`The West’s urgent task must be to get Putin off his self-impaled meat hook and stop the bombing and killing` (The Guardian, 24^th June 2024).

A bit earlier a joint letter had appeared in The Financial Times. This was signed by Lord Sidelsky and eight other prominent academics and journalists. Headed `Seize the Peace Before it’s Too Late` it insisted that:

`Washington should start talks with Moscow and a new security pact which could safeguard the legitimate security interests of Ukraine and Russia…. this would immediately be followed by a time limited ceasefire in Ukraine [which] would enable Russian and Ukrainian leaders to negotiate in a realistic, constructive manner`. (July 10^th, 2024).

Diplomatic offers.

As early as March 2022 Turkiye and Israel put themselves forward as mediators between Ukraine and Russia. Their framework consisted of Ukraine remaining neutral but with multilateral security guarantees and a fifteen-year consultation period on the status of Crimea (quincyist.org).

China too, despite its close economic ties with Russia, has made repeated calls for `harmony` between the warring nations. Their first 12-point peace plan was praised by Segei Lavrov as `the most reasonable one so far` (Reuters, April 4^th 2024).

However, they followed this up with a 6-point peace plan produced in tandem with Brazil which they claimed had the support of more than 110 countries (Pravda Eng, 3^rd August 2024).

Also, this year, Hungarian President Viktor Oban, in his role as the rotating leader of the European Union, toured many countries touting his own peace solution. This called for a ceasefire linked to a deadline that would allow for peace talks (BBC, 12^th July 2024).

Last April Recep Erdogan, the President of Turkiye unveiled his own peace plan. The proposed measures involved a ban on interference in other countries affairs, a complete prisoner exchange, freezing the war on existing terms, a foreign policy referendum in the Ukraine by 2040 and Ukraine joining the European Union but not NATO (N.V. Nation, April 11^th, 2024).

So many peace proposals have been put on the table, but the question is: Can Russia and the West ever work together?

Co-operation is possible.

Americans and Russians do remain capable of joint activities in certain areas. Astronauts and cosmonauts carry out missions with one another on the International Space Station and are projected to keep on doing so until at least 2025 (Moscow Times, December 28^th 2023).

Then we had the prisoner exchange at the start of this August organized between Washington and Moscow. Twenty-six people were exchanged in these negotiations making it the largest such swop since Cold War times (C.N.N. 1^st August 2024).

Moreover, the most significant international deal (as well as the first one) was brokered on July 22^nd 2020. In the Black Sea Grain Agreement, Turkiye, the United Nations, Ukraine and Russia co-signed a pact in Istanbul which ensured the safe passage of grain exports.

What about Kursk?

All that said, there may be many who are in agreement with the foregoing but feel that Ukraine’s recent incursion into Russian territory has ended any hope of further talks and diplomacy and indeed has led to a ratcheting up of the situation.

As much as Western military pundits have hyped up this bold action, there does remain something symbolic at work here.

At the time of writing the Ukrainian military have seized land that is in rough terms about the size of ten per cent of the Greater London region in the UK. Lives have been taken, of course, but the Ukrainians have taken many more Russian conscripts as prisoners and have otherwise given the Kremlin the time and space to plan mass evacuations of thousands of people from the affected regions. For their part, the Russians have not taken any drastic inhumane measures such as carpet bombing the area and the much-feared prospect of reprisals with nuclear warheads has not materialised.

Military experts seem to concur that the Ukrainian army is not that likely to be able to continue to advance that much further into Russian soil. The Ukrainians themselves have stated that they do not intend to keep this land forever. So, what is really going on here?

Putin himself may have hinted at the deeper motive behind this gesture. In an emergency meeting with officials he said of it:

`It appears that the enemy is aiming to improve its negotiating position in the future` (Channel 4, 13^th August, 2024).

What future negotiations did Putin have in mind exactly?

The diplomatic offensive.

The winds of peace are blowing and to know which direction they are blowing in we must ignore the siren voices of superficial rhetoric. One fond rhetorical illusion is the one which tries to frame this war as a repeat of the Second World War. The Western press likes to paint Ukraine as another Poland in 1939. Similarly, Kremlin propaganda seeks to portray the `special military operation` as an extension of The Great Patriotic War`.

However, just as the Ukraine is not just teeming with neo-Nazis, so too nor is Putin a contemporary Hitler. I know of no serious evidence, for example, that he or his regime holds any designs on the Baltic states, still less Sweden. Citizens of the `democratic West` must, with right and left united, lead the charge of the diplomatic offensive. They must make their anti-war views known through all channels from demonstrations to petitions and demand that the leaders of the world pull the plug out of the meat grinder.

Monument to peace in Kokshetau, Kazakhstan.

Main image: gas-kvas.com

2020: WHEN THE KISSING HAD TO STOP.

`Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel` – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment.

In wishing you and the other guy that reads this All the Best for Etcetera, let us revisit some of the more promising signposts in sight and sound that were served up in these last leaden twelve months.

I opened last year with a write-up of the film Invasion and in this opined:what a roaring way to welcome in the Roaring Twenties!
Alas, it seems that we are not so much in the Roaring Twenties as the Rasping Twenties!

Aspects of this – the Zoom pandemic year – were presaged by the grim military fantasy Avanpost from 2019 with its quarantine zones, mass infections and blackouts but even more so by the television series Epidemia (from the same year) – starring The Sniffer’s Kirril Karo – which was serialised on Netflix with subtitles earlier this year.

There have been some small mercies. The Mayor of Moscow, Sobyanin only visited one Big Stop on us all (between late March and early July). There have been no more since then.

So – I never thought I’d say this -but a Big Thank You to Sergey Semyonovich Sobyanin for not being a fanatic for Big Stops! He may have put an end to Gay Parades in Moscow, but he hasn’t put an end to the gay parade that is Moscow life itself.

The main casualty of Rasping Twenties so far has been the ability to join a crowd and see rock/pop artists perform in front of you in darkened halls. Even the venues for this are being decimated: Glav Green Club is limping along but Red Club is an empty property and Mumy Troll Music Bar is likewise hollowed out.

(The same is true for pivbars. Kamchatka – the street mecca of central Moscow – closed its doors forevermore last December in order to be replaced by yet another Adidas retail department. The Kruzhka chain is still around though).

I did however manage to turn up to see the theatrical cosmic rock act Sunwalter. They were playing alongside fellow nu-metal exponents like Blackthorn in an event styling itself Metal Against Corona at Live Stars on 2nd October – just before further restrictions would have made such an event impossible again.

The cinematic breakthrough of the year has to be Sputnik. Premiering online last April during the Big Stop, it made it into the cimemas in August and has been welcomed with a string of appreciative comments by Western European and North American cineasts.

Let us hope that its vaccine namesake Sputnik V proves to be every bit of a success!

(By the way, if you like scary Russian movies then join me on my Facebook page Russian Horror is Cool. This gets more hits than this here blog, which is damned annoying!)

Although I have yet to review it The Man From Podolsk must constitute the other significant film of this year. A Harold Pinteresque absurdist take on culture rifts in contemporary Russia, it reminds us that literate and awkward films can still make it in the current environment. It is the Zerograd (1989) of our time.

As for the popular novel, I was a latecomer to the Labyrinths of Echo series. This is not my genre and I will not be thumbing through the whole series, but fans of Fantasy should make the acquaintance of Max Frei. Apart from anything else, his sense of fun is so contrary to our times.

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GENERATION P: alone in uncovering significant cultural signposts from the Other Russia and subjecting them to the critical gaze of a Western European.

Do stay onboard for this quirky but important guided tour!

FOR MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING AND CO-OPERATION BETWEEN NATIONS IN 2O21!

TRAFFIC JAMS? WE KNOW A SONG ABOUT THAT, DON’T WE? GOROD 312 live at the Mumy Troll music bar, December 7th.

Kyrgyztan’s local heroes excite loyal fans in a routine concert.

Silhouetted against the red and purple floodlights Masha Illeeva, the modelesque lead guitarist of GOROD 312 sways and sings along to the robust pop-rock classics of her band, a picture of joyful absorption,infecting the audience with the same fleeting delirium….

Despite being more of a rocker than popper, I have followed GOROD 312 for over a decade in whilst in Russia. This merry band of talented Kyrgyz, with their distinctive act, represent something vital that has come out of the noughties.
GOROD 312 hail from Bishek, the picturesque capital of Kyrgyzstan – their very name references the dialling code of that city. Now based in Moscow they have, over the last 18 years conjured up five well received albums, featured on many films and TV soundtracks and become a household name throughout the C.I.S countries.

The band comprises of the 49-year-old songstress Sveltlana Nazarenko (Aya), Dmitir Pritula (Dima) the keyboardist and backing vocalist with the bassist Leonid Pritula. The main string merchant is Maria Illeeva (who, if you want the gossip, is married to Dima). Of late some newcomers have joined the retinue – such as Aleksander Il’Chuck (Alex).

They sing of traffic jams, the changing of the seasons, urban life and heartache and, brimming with exuberant chutzpah, offer a live act in which they seem to take genuine relish. With sheer musical aplomb they fuse rock, blues and dance music and deal very much is songs, which are led by Aya. I tend to view the gropu as an Eastern Blondie.
Conventional but rousing.
Despite the 3,000 rouble tickets – the most I have paid for a gig in Moscow -Mumy troll Music Bar soon filled up with unpretentious punters, most in their thirties.
The first sign of the band’s imminent arrival was the flashing up of a chic logo on the screen behind the stage. (The rest of the visual accompaniment turned out to be a disappointment, consisting of a rehash of their old music videos).

With an extra lead guitar they functioned as a six piece with a fuller and more detailed sound. Otherwise they look unaltered by time (they might have been the same people I saw live five or so years back) and deliver compositions which match the quality of their live recordings.

Festooned in silver necklaces, Aya is an engaging frontwoman. Sometimes she would appear to be singing to individual members of the audience. She also encouraged us to sing along – now the women, now the men. In fact, in this respect the band were poles apart from Delfin, who I saw this time last year and found to be somewhat remote. (The other musicians in the band did seem to be a little less involved though).

Later there would be a drum solo, another cosy routine and one which I quite enjoyed this time. Meanwhile, they strutted their stuff though a lot of cherished standards – Fonari, Pomaginye, Gipnos (a rare duet),the anthemic Devochka, Katorya Hotelya Schastya and of course that karaoke standard Ostanus. They showcased a few new numbers including a lachrymose one about friendship which had the people around me hugging each other. What was lacking was the ever catchy Nevidimka (Invisible Woman) as well as some of their edgier alt rock pieces.

It proved an average set but one which after an hour and a half of it had us wanting more. Their main trick – which constitutes the very stuff of effective pop – is to make cheeriness seem cool. They acknowledge some reality in their upbeat ditties, but as they play you want to step into their world.

Nevidimka (Invisible Woman)by Gorod 312.

ROARING TRADE: PILOT LIVE AT GLAV CLUB, MOSCOW NOVEMBER 9TH.

Is this much-loved band the saviour of the Russian rock genre?

This November Saturday night proved to be as grey as the preceding October and I hoped that this band, new to me, could buoy me up – in particular as those last two live gigs had left me unmoved.
They did.

Pilot [short /i/and beat on the second syllable] were recommended to me during a rare chance encounter with a self-confessed Russian rock fan who was also a Russian himself. This seemed a good enough omen in itself.

The Pied Piper’s of St Pete’s.
The second good omen came when I tried to get my ticket. For various reasons I buy my tickets in person over the counter. My trusty usual kiosk told me that all the tickets had already been pocketed. I got lucky at another place however.
Then at the Glav Green Club itself I encountered a queue on my way in and, along this, wideboys were pushing last-minute offers for anyone who had turned up on the off-chance.

The gig going community – and this night it did feel like a community – became so populous that we had to wait our turns to get in and out of the venue.

In the lobby meanwhile, the band’s merchandise – the lemon yellow wooly hats and scarves -were getting swallowed up faster than the stall holders could unbox new batches of them.
After twenty-two years of strumming and pounding, Pilot have the capacity to really pull the crowds.

Alt rock institution.

Conceived and organised in the rainy second capital of St Petersburg by Ilya `Chort`Knabengof in 1997, the band, first under the moniker Military Jane, have honed their own local strain of hard indie rock. This incorporates folkish and punkish influences but within an industrial sensibility.
What’s more, their Russian nationality seems to be encoded into these sonic emanations. Throughout their existence they have been transmorgifying into a unique brand, complete with a recognisable cartoon logo, numerous fan sites, endless photo shoots and so on.
In this tour they were revisiting an album called `Fish, Mole and Pig` which was first produced 15 years back.

Anthems for the 21st Century.
The doors of the concert venue were unlocked at 7 pm and the four piece materialised about an hour and a half later. There was no warm up act.
Following a shamanic sounding introductory soundtrack, the drummer, Nikita Belozyorov, arrived shirtless. The bass guitarist, Sergei Vyrvrich, a relaxed tall man with a floppy blonde fringe, came on next. Then Ilya himself appeared – wearing shades, which he never removed. The keyboardist was invisible (supplied by digital means, I presume).

They compensated for their nondescript appearance with much use of back projections to underscore the songs themes. Not that it was easy to see that much anyway, through the vineyard of raised phones, scarfs and girlfriends sat on shoulders.

Their opener was a declaration of intent just called `Rock`. Many in the audience seemed to have anticipated this as they held up pictures of the horned fist salute with the words `Rock` written beneath.
The next number spoke of their civic pride for their home city as the backdrop showcased it all with shots of the spires and waterways of that city. There were songs about the sex industry, the Hindu religion, psychopaths (`Nye Chelovek`) and one titled `Terrorism`.

Pilot, without offering leadership, could not be called escapist and do seem willing to confront the questions of the day.
That said, some of their compositions showed unashamed sentimentality. One involved a visual tour through old family albums and another, celebrating the band’s longevity, showcased children’s drawings from yesteryear as balloons dropped down from the ceiling.

Quite singular.
Like t.A.T.u, Pilot prove a more impressive experience live than in recorded format. Belozyorov’s tom -toms, put high in the mix, are a great boon in the upbeat ambience they create. In fact, Pilot dish out quite a detailed sound with keyboard melodies and guitar digressions aplenty.

I find it difficult to twin this outfit with any that I know in the West. Pilot owe a clear debt to the grunge of the Nineties. Otherwise they might be understood as a more slick version of their compatriots Posledni Tanki V Paris.

If `Russian rock` constitutes a genre in its own right, and many contend that it does, then Pilot might be said to be one of its last remaining popular exponents.
Sure, there are bands like Louna and IC3Peak, but the former seem to belong to an international nu metal trend and the latter to an international dark wave hip-hop tendency. Pilot are Russian-Russian.

My kind of crowd.
The feeling in the air of this enjoyable gig had a lot to do with the punters. In their thirties and forties and not dressed to impress, they exuded cheery bonhomie. For example, they offered to hold my beer for me as I tried to take pictures. I saw no fights break out.

We all downed quite a few Tuborg’s together with a lot of help from the – let me say – angelic bar staff. I got a real sense of this being an audience who were not just here to see the band, but here to say: Here we all are! Just look at us all!

`Osyen` by Pilot.

Main image:Flavara.com

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (ZAVODNOI APPELSIN) at the Theatre of Nations, Moscow November 20th

O my brothers! I viddied a bezoomny horrorshow about a malenky bit of the old ultraviolence!

The play calling itself `A Clockwork Orange` (`Zavodnoi Appelsin`) seems to have become a permanent fixture in the schedules of Moscow’s Theatre of Nations. My previous attempts to get tickets for it had failed and this evening, courtesy of a whole load of thirty-somethings, was a full house.
I need to say at the outset that what I saw was very much a conceptual spin-off from Anthony Burgess’s sensational novel of 1962 and by no means an adaptation of it, or even of Stanley Kubrick’s much vaunted 1971 screen rendering of the same. Instead this functioned as an original idea by the writers Yuriy Klavdiev and Ilia Kukharenko with the director Fillip Grigoryan. After all, the novel is unstageable (as I can testify having sat through a lame attempt to do do by drama students many years ago). The drama really concerns the genesis of the novel A Clockwork Orange and in that it resembles Ken Russel’s film Gothic (1986) which tells of how Frankenstein came to be written.
As much as this fact disconcerted me, I never got bored throughout this 1 hour 50 minute (without intermissions) production, and that is despite my less than perfect Russian language skills. Rather, I left the theatre feeling perplexed and remain so now. My only disappointment lay in not being shown the sinister glitter of a brave new world that the novel offers. The play glances back to the past.

The Moscow Connection.
Still, if you live in Moscow you already inhabit the world of A Clockwork Orange: the blocks of flats whose windows are illuminated by the flickering light of TV sets, the bars with names like `The Duke of New York`, the superannuated murals glorifying labour, the vast public video screens – not all of these are in Burgess’s story, but might as well have been.
There exists a deeper link to Russia’s capital too. Malcolm McDowell (the iconic Alex in Kubrick’s film) told of how Burgess, before writing the novel, had been on an exchange visit to Moscow. He was sitting in a coffee bar one warm evening when a group of learing thugs pressed their faces against the window (Newspunch.com, February 4th 2016). This vignette provided a catalyst for Burgess’s story and also its telling via `nadstat`, the teenage slang full of Russian loan words.

Burgess’s demon.
There was another inspiration to the novel however, and this play zooms in on it. What happened was that Burgess’s wife was assaulted, in Burgess’s absence, by American G.I’s. Many critics have hypothesised that A Clockwork Orange represented Burgess’s attempt to come to terms with the trauma that this terrible event wrought on him.
The main protagonist of the play is a Burgess-like `writer` (characterised as a beret wearing member of the intelligentsia). The incident is represented – borrowing a sequence from the novel -by the rape of his wife in a country house setting.
It is an ordinary miscreant who ends up behind bars who conjures up the demon of the `imaginary Alex` by throwing the writer into helpless introspective guilt.
Otherwise the play features the stand-off between Youth and Age (but fails to explore this in the sociological way that Burgess attempted) and there is a bit of rumination on popular culture (sixties pop music plays a big role in this production).
As for the nadstat: I had been eager to see how a Russian language production would deal with this but drew a blank. In the stage notes to the play there is an intriguing suggestion that the script used Google translate to create the feel of an artificial language, but this was lost on this Russian learner.
Sixties retro.

The set comprises a moderne country house, the inside of which we view from the garden, courtesy of a wall length sliding window. There is some attention to the detail of sixties Britain with the wife, for example, being clad in one of the flowing skirts of the period (I was reminded of the recent British play Home, I’m Darling where a couple try to recreate late fifties domesticity). We also encounter a Britishism in the form of a garden gnome. How stunned we are when this comes to life and begins to address the audience!
You would expect a bit of the old ultraviolence to get a look in too. It does. The rape sequence is prolonged and distasteful, but not cheapened with any attempt at eroticism. The most disturbing scene, however, is the grievous bodily harm committed on Alex by his elders. (It appears that theatre censorship in Russia is not as stringent as all that).

Fresh take.
There is little point in trying to give you the `plot` of this play. This is an expressionistic trip through vaudevillian sequences held together by a Strindbergian dream logic. Or to put it another way it is a bit like what you might have got if Andrei Tarkovsky rather than Kubrick had directed a film version of the novel.
In fact, the only Kubrick influence in the play comes via his film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969) in the use of a Ligeti like score as the plays opening. The only iconic reference to the film occurs when Alex is given a drink of moloko (milk) by his parents.
Also we get an extended dumb show in which the writer’s wife, masked by sinister facial bandages, mimes to a sixties ballad and a surreal scene where the `imaginary Alex` turns up to the house in the form of a cyborg Black Knight – only to morph into the couple’s querulous teenage son. Later there is also a home video where Alex’s parents torture him.
Throughout there is a determination not to feel predictable or to fall into clichés. Even when Beethoven gets an airing, it is the gentler Beethoven of `The Moonlight Sonata` and not the more rousing works associated with the Kubrick film. (As I often bewail the derivative or stodgy nature of much modern Russian culture I cannot really complain about this!)
In any case, this play may be iconoclastic but it is not at all irreverent. The writers have demonstrated much concern here for the life and times of Anthony Burgess. Nor have they made the theme of violence a titillating one.
You might even see this play as something of a black comedy, although the fact that the audience did not so much as titter might owe to the fact that, like me, they would need some time to mull the whole thing over.
If you imagine that modern Russian theatre is all revivals of The Cherry Orchard then wake up and nyuhakh the kofye!

Theatre of Nations site (English).

`Freud’s Method`: A Russian small screen sleuth.

This standard cop thriller hardly breaks any new ground, but does at least ooze a Muscovite ambience.

A `universal palliative equal to tea, aspirins and the wireless`, said George Orwell of the British and their detective stories. In Russia the situation seems little different.

From Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866) through to the Soviet era where Vil Lipatov introduced us to Captain Prokhorov, a Perry Mason for the Brezhnev period, and the T.V classic The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (1979 – 1986), whose Vasily Ivanov was honoured with an M.B.E for his portrayal of Holmes, and which surprised Holmes fans worldwide with its devotion to the legend, Russians have clasped mysteries to their breasts.Then we even have a rock band named Agata Kristie! In the Russian language the name for a detective novel is simply `detektiv` – no need for any other elaboration.

The mean streets of Moscow.

Whilst the Russian/Ukrainian success story The Sniffer, with its high production values, may yet do for the Slavic input to the crime genre that Wallander did for Scandinavian noir, Freud’s Method (Metod Freyda) – not to be confused with Sreda’s more recent The Method (a riff on Dexter) -is a more modest and domestic affair. The creation of Star Media (better known for their sunny `melodramas`) and running since 2012, Freud’s Method occurs against the backdrop of an identifiable Moscow and its premise is altogether less absurd than the better known product.

Mikhail Vaynberg was behind the clapboard for the first Season with Vladimir Dyachenko and Aleksei Krasovsky tapping out the scripts. From 2014 a second series – Freud’s Method 2 –was born and a fresh newcomer – Ivan Stakhnakov took over directing duties and a whole team of writers worked on the stories. Both had 12 episodes of 50 minutes in length.

Enigmatic lead.

The anti-hero sleuth at the core of it all is one Roman Freydin (Ivan Okhlobstyn). A former professional poker player and globe-trotter turned psychologist, Freydin now finds himself employed as a `special consultant` to the Prosecutor’s Office. The eponymous `method` represents his ability to use mind games the better to draw out suspects into self-confession.

In many ways a Holmesian figure – aloof, seeming to lack feeling, arrogant and sometimes supercilious, there are nevertheless hints that he is lonely man. Moreover, Okhlobstyn, himself 52, plays the detective as a youthful dandy in yellow sweaters and socks, and one not above having liaisons with his suspects. Nevertheless,his speech is often provocative: upon encountering the corpses of a murdered young married couple he comments: `They’ll not be squabbling in slippers`. Otherwise he tends towards Wildean aphorisms: `Happy lovers always tell lies,unhappy lovers always tell the truth`, For instance, or `A woman’s secret is like a baby. It needs to stay inside for some time`. We also learn that Freydin has picked up some quasi-special powers during his sojourns abroad. From shamans he has mastered the art of mimicking his own death and it appears that he was the mystery saviour who saved his own boss from a helicopter accident in the Himalayas.

The merry band.

The cops Freydin works with function as a kind of surrogate family to him as they seek to crack unusual homicide cases on the icy boulevards of Moscow. We encounter an elegant and no-nonsense investigator played by the prolific actress Natalia Antonova (for whom Freydin nurses a forever unrequited longing). Then we have the dour jobbing plainclothes policeman (Aleksei Grishkin) whose unobtrusiveness contrasts with the persona of Freydin. It is inevitable that we also need two perky young male and female officers too who function as eye-candies and who drive a soap opera – type `will they/won’t they?` romantic suspense sub-plot. In the first season these consist of Pavel Priluchniy and Elena Nikoleava and in the second Roman Polyanski and the striking Olga Dibsteva. Presiding over them all is Artur Vaha playing the sort of stout, uniformed paterfamilias so beloved of Russian dramas.

Some episodes do tackle some specific issues, and not such comfortable ones to a Russian television audience. One story in Season one (Series 4) concerns the murder of an immigrant by a vengeful father who believes that he has raped her daughter…and yet we discover that the truth is rather more tangled than that. With its closing message that Illegal Immigrants Have Rights Too, this is one gold nugget of an episode. (I have linked this below).

Still escapism.

For all this murky social realism, however, there is a comedic element to it all. This is true in particular of Season 2 where the pace speeds up. (There is, for example a running gag where Freydin is forever being pestered by unsolicited phone calls from pizza deliverers). In fact the lives of our crime busters might be seen to be quite enviable: all breezy philosophising in the staff room, then gadding about the city with time for flirting and dating, all the while managing to look chic. Many an episode closes over a contemplative glass of cognac. So, like many a western crime drama, Freud’s Method fosters an impression that it offers a slice of modern life but wraps it all up in comforting stylishness.

Beguiled.

Seldom a watcher of equivalent detective shows in the West, I came to Freud’s Method at first in seek of a Russian language learning aid. To the show itself I needed to be won over, but won over I was. The involvement of the talented Mr Okhlobstyn sets up a stumbling block. Alas, this former Orthodox priest has gained notoriety on account of his quasi-fascistic standpoints on nationalism and minority sexualities. This troubles me, but the character he plays does not reflect the real life actor, far from it in fact. The franchise seems to have its heart in the right forward-looking place and does so, furthermore, whilst exuding the somehow cosy spirit of Moscow.

Episode from Season 1 (English subtitles).

The Orwell quotation comes from `The Detective Story, 1943 ` Seeing things As They Are’, Pengiun Modern Classics, 2016

Kamchatka beer bar, Moscow.

The locale of many a lost weekend.

Should you get that craving for sweet relief from the harpy-screech of the Metro ringing in your skull, from the pompous 4-by 4 drivers honking at pedestrians and the lonely crowded thoroughfares – from Moscow in short –then there is a cubby-hole you can head for. This appears in an unlikely setting.

Fancy meeting you here.

Along the upmarket shopping street of Kuznetsky Most you will meet the red neon sign of Kamchatka Pivbar. Named in tribute to Russia’s wild and volcanic peninsula, and part of a chain that also takes in St Petersburg, Kamchatka bar resembles (with apologies to John Osborne) a real, if decayed tooth in a mouthful of gold filings. The café-bar is nestled between Vogue café on the one side and an Asian restaurant known as Mr Lee on the other: both salubrious joints of which I can tell you nothing. Not only that, but the place is bang opposite an entrance to the lordly State Department Store, GUM. Thus may a cat look at a king and seedy hipsters be the neighbours of the tweed-and pearl set.

Cosy dive.

Opening from a pedestrianised street, Kamchatka boasts two floors, one of them a basement. As we enter we encounter an orange brown interior lit by industrial globe shaped lamps. The seats have desks with inverted Heinz ketchup dispensers on them and these are surrounded by a motley assortment of bric-a-brac and retro cool. Above the exposed brickwork big old-looking signs hang from the ceilings promoting outdated looking wares. On the walls, and on the beer mats you can appreciate the saucy kitsch commercial art of Valeriy Baroikin. His idyllic vignettes illustrate `Beer For Cultural Relaxation` on behalf of Zhiguli brewers.

Zhiguli promotional by Valeriy Baroikin.
[Illustrators.ru]

Totter down to the basement hall and you pass a bicycle fixed to the stair railings. Down there parties of people lounge about on small armchairs and halved oil drums with cushions in. You will be needing the spacious male and female toilets there too.

`Better a light beer, than a Bright Future`.

The main attractions are the Zhiguli beers, the cheapest of which – their Barnoye – will relieve you of just 150 Roubles. Served to you by hyperactive student waitresses, this soapy ale delivers the right kind of chillaxing buzz without making you go cross-eyed and singing Rule Britannia. The beer though is gassy – gassier than a gas explosion in a gas factory in Gazigazgorod. So you might have to resign yourself to being a Viz Comic character for the next day.

With a dash of Slavic irony the establishment also offer two FREE bottles of champagne to any customers between 3 and 5 in the morning. This seems rather generous of them until you think it over.

Foodwise there are a number of unmedicinal stomach fillers on offer. Hardy boys at a furnace near the entrance can hammer out a shaurma with chicken, and a number of burgers (which I am told are edible). Soviet style soohariki (dark dried bread) is sold in paper cones at the bar.

The soundtrack constitutes an appropriate mix of technoed-up pop songs by Bratya Grim and Grigory Leps plus the worst of Retro FM. This creates the right kind of nightclub-like expectancy without forcing you to shout at the top of your lungs.

A Bunch of Sweeties.

The clientelle come and go announced by blasts of cold air at the front door. Their average age is 25 and there are two kinds: those en route to something more active and those at the end of a sentimental drinks journey, who are crawling on their lips. In spite of this, I have yet to be enlisted in a fracas here, although I have heard tell of such.

The not-so-elfin doormen are concerned for the most part that you do not bring in anything vegetable, mineral or liquid that would compete with Kamchatka’s sumptuous repasts. They are quite serious about this: I have lost vast banquets of food from the fact that, on the way out, I am too refreshed to reclaim my confiscated items or because the security staff have switched over, or some combination thereof.

Cheer and cheapful.

Kamchatka beer bar hosts an affordable drinking experience in a convivial and unpretentious environment. Even with the rise of micro-breweries, less and less venues in the capital can offer the same.

To get there, come out of Kuznetsky Metro station and…just follow the in-crowd. Or leap into a taxi and ask for `Kamchatka`(although if your drive proves to be a long one you might just be in for a spot of volcano watching).

Kamchatka beer bar on Instagram.

`P.T.V.P` live at the Red Club, Moscow

Vintage garage rockers promote gleeful disorder among younger fans.

Photography by Iain Rodgers.

I have been among many gig goers in Kazan and Moscow to catch a bit of darkwave (Otto Dix), some grindcore ([Amatory]), some blues (Blues Gravity) and a bit of pop-rock (Gorod 312) but had not really been witness to any rUsSiAn PuNk. Until now that is.

In fact Russian punk rock has a longer history than you might expect. Many trace this genre’s origins back to Leningrad (now St Petersburg) in 1979. And what if I told you that there was a punk band called Adolf Hitler from Siberia – in 1986!

Posledni Tank V Parizhe (Last Tank in Paris) – often abbreviated to P.T.V.P – were formed ten years later in 1996 and in fact they hail from the supposed birthplace of Russian punk. They are said have kept hold of some (whisper it) political dissent. As so many newer acts seem to fail in this regard, this would be worth seeing.

Their appearance in the capital on 16^th September this year was not well publicised and even grabbing an advance ticket proved to be an obstacle course. The babaushka at the kiosk who would be the usual supplier swore blind that there was no such band on at the Red Club, and it was to that club that I had to go to in the end to get satisfaction.

Situated on Bolotnaya Nab on the bank of the River Moskva, this long established nightclub-cum restaurant serves as a place for big acts, with the emphasis on rock. This event was billed as Demokraticheskoi Konsert Po Zayavkam which I first took as a bold plea for a more representative government before realising that it had more the sense of `Due to popular demand. `

I estimate that the mixed sex and age audience that came in from the early autumn nippiness reached 800 or so. Few looked like hardcore punks: I espied a `Punk’s Not Dead` t-shirt and a `Motorhead `one and one guy with a mohican, but the rest of us had come as we were.

As we sipped our 400 rouble a throw Budweisers, a backstage projection behind the stage shone the initials P.T.V.P and we grew restless. They arrived at about 9.00 pm, an hour after the ticket time. This four piece string and drum outfit consist of Denis Krichov hitting the skins and adding to the vocals, Igor Nedviga on bass and also some vocals and Anton `Bender` Dokuchaev, the axeman. These came on first as the gathering chanted `P! T! V! P! `

Then, from the back of the stage, emerged Aleksei Nikonov, the poet and kingpin of the ensemble. No pretty boy, chunky and in a dark suit and shades he resembled a member of the Blues Brothers except for his slicked back hair and man-bun.

Nikonov greeted Moscow and they kick-started their two hour set. Their dirty sound was predictable for the most part: honed down energetic rock and roll (think The Damned era punk) and some more upbeat power pop but also some more thoughtful alternative rock interludes which brought to mind Magazine. This was a big sound for a four piece (I think I detected the use of a backing track only once). Some of their guitar work reached a divine level. Nikonov’s vocal delivery, on the other hand, aped the standard telegrammatic nagging of early British punk rock.

The musicians presented a nondescript appearance but Nikonov compensated for this by his `Red Indian` style circular stomping, his waving of a baton and by appearing to swig from a wine bottle (I say `appearing` because I believe that onstage drinking is banned in Russia. At least I have never seen it done for real).

The audience were the ones providing the main spectacle though: women gyrated like charmed snakes and I saw a guy held up by two walking sticks head banging with his dreadlocks flying everywhere. There was much in the way of slam dancing and its attendant stage diving. One girl, after doing her first exploratory stage dive, ran back to the embrace of her mother.

I think I caught the word `revolutsia` once but any sense of taking on state control was lost in the indiscernible lyrics. While the motley crew who came to see the band were no conformists, they had not come for that. The word had clearly got out that P.T.V.P could create a backdrop for a bit of organised mayhem. So what!? Naff off!

Decent article on Russian Punk here.

Some of their music here

`KONVERT`: a spectral odyssey through the Moscow of today.

There has been a welcome trickle of cinematic chillers issuing from Russia of late. We had the great Diggeri (Diggers) screening in 2016. Also the 35 year old Svyatoslav Podgaevsky has carved a niche for himself as a horror flick practitioner with Pikova Dama (Queen of Spades) from 2015, and, from last year Nevesta (The Bride) plus Ruslka: Ozero Mortvykh (Mermaid: Lake of the Dead) from this year At more of a pinch there is also the Gogol franchise starting with, Gogol: Nachalno (Gogol: The Beginning) which hit the Russian cinemas last year.

Konvert (The Envelope), another addition to Russia’s late foray into the horror genre, is an understated mini-gem. This was screened from November 30^th 2017 but – and this tells you a lot –had a run of only a week in most cinemas and seemed to get tucked away into late showings to make room for more popular fare like Dude Who Shrunk My Car? 3

The up and coming 37 year old Vladmir Markov held the clapper-board, the yarn was spun by Ilya Kulikov (who wrote the `Chernobyl Zone of Exclusion` TV series) and it introduces a 30 year old newcomer to the screen: the lean and dark Igor Lizengevitch.

At 78 minutes long `Konvert` is a compact tale with a handful of people for the cast and with all the action taking place in central Moscow over 24 hours. There are very few jump scares and almost no gory bits, (hence it being a 16 Certificate film). Indeed, this is a spooky and poetic drama with a European feel about it. Good use is made of sumptuous cruising shots of day and night Moscow from the wheel of a car and from above. The moody ambient score by Sergiei Stern then enhances this.

Igor is a young chauffeur for an architectural bureau. A letter arrives which seems to be sent to the wrong address. The secretary – an alluring young woman – gives him the task of ensuring that it ends up in the right hands. (You get the impression that Igor only agrees to this assignment to get in her favour and expect a love interest to develop, but it typifies the economy of this film that we never see her again).

In his efforts to deliver the mysterious envelope to the right apartment – through shadowy doorways and dusty alleyways –Igor enters the `twilight zone` where urban reality and phantoms commingle. Realising that the envelope is cursed he attempts to off load it onto other people but it keeps on ending up in his hands. Then a policewoman becomes his ally and joins him on his quest as they pursue a spectral girl, the victim of a car crash, and are lead to a cemetery….

Like Nevesta, and many a ghost story, this concerns the laying to rest of old injustices. The comparison between old Russia and the steel and glass modernity of Moscow is brought out well.

Less derivative than Pikova Dama, less melodramatic than Nevesti but not as much fun as Diggeri, Konvert is ideal fare for an icy mid-winter. Like Igor, you will have to do some searching to find it however!

I went to an Irish pub to watch an acoustic performer: what was I thinking of?

More and more leaders and commentators are seeking a diplomatic endgame to the tragic Russo-Ukrainian war. Can this still be achieved?

`Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel` – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment.

GENERATION P: alone in uncovering significant cultural signposts from the Other Russia and subjecting them to the critical gaze of a Western European.

Do stay onboard for this quirky but important guided tour!

I went to an `Irish pub` to watch an acoustic performer: what was I thinking of?