Translated material
Things can only get better. In the 1990s, nightclubs changed Britain. Does Russia have such a chance in the 2020s?
Moscow, February 11, 2024, K-Pop style party at Live Club
Maxim Shemetov/REUTERS/ Scanpix
“It is difficult to understand history - every corrupt rabble has tried to do it - but even if you do not completely trust “history”, it is quite appropriate to assume that from time to time the accumulated energy of an entire generation suddenly bursts out in a delightful flash of brightness. The reasons for which none of our contemporaries can truly understand, and, delving into the past, they never explain what really happened.”
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
While systematically fighting against any pockets of free thought in Russian society, the Kremlin periodically attacks the less obvious ones. Those that are difficult to directly connect with the sphere of interests of state security - even in its distorted understanding. For example, children's hobbies or clothing style . Events in recent weeks allow us to add nightlife to this list. On November 30, security forces raided the Moscow clubs Mono and Arma (the latter is better known by its former name Mutabor - it was where the infamous “naked party” took place), where visitors lay face down on the floor for several hours, selectively lingered and listened to threats of tearing out their nails with pliers. The situation repeated itself last weekend, but the geography of the raids expanded to St. Petersburg and Chelyabinsk.
In both cases, law enforcement officers explained their visits as “measures to combat LGBT propaganda.” Which in itself is a kind of basis for mass disruption of parties (how much does lying face down on a dirty floor, sticky from drinks, under the boot of a riot policeman contribute to counter-propaganda?). In addition, it also does not correlate well with the fact that most of the clubs that came under raids never emphasized their “LGBT-friendliness”. The same Arma is an ordinary techno club, popular among Muscovites regardless of their sexual orientation, which club culture is not accustomed to paying attention to at all.
After all, her philosophy boils down to liberation from conventions. Ideological, sexual and social differences that people forget about all night long in order to pass the time in an irrational state of collective ecstasy. The very original name of the Mutabor club is a spell from Wilhelm Hauff’s fairy tale “The Caliph the Stork”: “Whoever sniffs the powder in this box and at the same time says mutabor , he can turn into any animal and will also understand the language of animals.”
And the Russian authorities are very annoyed not so much by the fact that partygoers are snorting “powder in a box”, but by their approach to this wild state of animal emancipation. It looks like a big threat to “public order” in the authoritarian interpretation of this expression - but the fight against the elements of nightlife through special forces combat boots can undermine this order even more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig9EoGPPCUs
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