Moscow

Can someone post the address of the Penthouse Club on Arbat Street? Also, what is the best way to get there from the Marriott Royal Aurora Hotel? Can you take the subway? Also what time does the Club open? Is there any afternoon action or just evenigs? Thank you for any information you can provide.

Canyon

[QUOTE=Pizdyets]I have indeed been to most of the "Golden Ring" towns, including Pereslavl-Zalessky, and as I've written here before, the desperation factor and affordability is much better than in Moscow - even if they're located less than 2 hours outside. Passepartout confirmed this on a recent trip to Kaluga (about 3 hours SW of Moscow). That said, you'd better have some Russian speaking skills in this case, as English won't be as prevalent in the boonies.
[/QUOTE]
Pizdyets,

Yes, this I undertand alright.

Fumbled my way through Vladimir and Suzdal a while back.

A fairly hectic 72 hour freebie-fest which kicked off on the [i]elektrichka[/i] of all places.

(Even allowing for limited Russian skills).


The one that surprised me was Suzdal.

Many visitors during the day but not too many linger after dark when the locals come out to play.

(And I do mean dark, due of a deficit of street lighting!)

Limited amount of venues so everyone eventually ends up at Landsia disco bar in the wee hours.

Here be many possibilities :)

Its 21 Novy Arbat which is the Lotte Plaza end of Arbat. Best to take a taxi from the Marriott. It opens at 21:00 and closes at 06:00

We are looking at getting a group together next Wednesday, join us if you are in town




[QUOTE=Canyon]Can someone post the address of the Penthouse Club on Arbat Street? Also, what is the best way to get there from the Marriott Royal Aurora Hotel? Can you take the subway? Also what time does the Club open? Is there any afternoon action or just evenigs? Thank you for any information you can provide.

Canyon[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Passepartout]
Prosal,
19 is the official competitor of Aurora, many reports here (i have the member card which gives free entrance and skidki for drinks). Main difference is that every 5 minutes a girl will show up for lap dance so be prepared for that. imho that's what you are looking for in a strip club, aren't you?[/QUOTE]
Right !! .... I love strip bars, yet, as I said in another thread, I guess I am spoiled by Tashkent, where in strip bars (or better say "in the closest thing to a strip bar you can get in Tashkent"), the lap dancing costs 3000 UZS (us$ 1.5) and the lady’s drinks go for the same rate as the customer’s, i.e a longneck beer is 4000 UZS and a vodka shot 3000 UZS (silly champagne cocktails have not arrived yet in Uzbekistan). In all, a heavy night (10pm-6am) at FM strip bar (a strip bar and a drinking hole under one roof, where most girls are absolutely stunning) with multiple lap dancings/neck massages, multiple drinks for self and girls plus if necessary some hookas and chocolate boxes for girls when they come to rest and chat at my table, costs me some 300 000 UZS (us$ 150)!!

A oligarch-style night out in Tashkent has financially not the same consequences than in Moscow !! :o

[QUOTE=Passepartout]Tricks to protects privacy life:
- no keys
- native community "meetings"
- sport after work
- business meetings [/QUOTE]
+1. The number one thing I personally say to a girl if I plan to go somewhere, or when I meet her, is that I first come to visit an "old friend who works at the embassy" (or "at the Alliance Francaise", that has some 1100 branches in the world) or this kind of BS. This effectively allows not only to find excuses for evenings and nights out without her, but also brush aside the suspicion of sex-tourism.

"success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
- winston churchill

it all started innocently enough. no, it wasn't a dark and stormy night - it was actually quite pleasant, temps near 20c with the crescent moon hanging optimistically in the midnight sky. but i was still in the office, pushing to finish the last portion of a briefing the boss was expecting on his desk the following morning. a couple of my colleagues were working nearby, finishing up a separate project which had required them to pull an all-nighter the previous night.

"woohoo! we're finally done!" ruslan exclaimed. "i'm gonna celebrate by getting myself a black bee-atch tonight! dima - are you up for driving?"

dima was looking weary after so many hours of work and so few hours of sleep.

"sure... why not? where are we going?"

speaking to me, ruslan said "you gonna join, man? we're going to that wh0re bar on kurskaya. i need myself a black bee-atch!"

deadpan, i responded "sorry, was already there today."

"yeah, right! come on, fucker! let's go!"

i was telling the truth. doc and i had been on a rampage the night prior, and hotdog was one of the many clubs we'd hit.

"seriously, my boss is gonna mess me up if i don't finish this tonight. tell you what, if i can finish this in the next couple hours, i'll call and maybe join you guys for a beer."

"deal!"

within 5 minutes, they were gone and i went back to my work, with a newfound motivation to get it finished asap.

about a half hour later, ruslan was ringing my mobile.

on the other end, it sounded ominously quiet - diametrically opposite to the hotdog that i know. suspecting what was going on, i asked "so, how is it there?"

"they didn't let us in."

"what the fuck? faced?"

"yup, the asshole just looked at us and said 'you will not pass'. i asked him to explain why, and he said it's not his duty to explain, just that we'd been faced. it was like something out of a kafka novel."

i was indeed surprised. i'd never had any issues getting into hd before, but then again i could never be mistaken for a university student - not for the past 10 years at least. ruslan and dima, on the other hand, are in their late 20s/early 30s but look substantially younger. also, i have the unmistakable accent of a western foreigner who's living in russia (and therefore expected to be loaded with cash).

"man, that sucks. sorry. what's your plan now?"

"dunno - what would you suggest?"

"there's only 2 wh0re bars in moscow, so your only other option is nightflight, and as i recall they require you to be at least 30 to enter."

ruslan knew this already, as he'd joined me at a partner dinner at nf and encountered resistance for even entering the restaurant with his boyish face.

"ah, man... what else can you think of?"

a light went off in my head.

"well, you could always hit a tochka. not sure about finding a black girl, but i guarantee it'll be a new experience for you."

"okay, cool! so you know where this place is? you can direct us?"

"um, sure. i'll be finished in about 30 minutes, so pick me up and we'll go from there."

ruslan was positively gleeful. "okay, we'll see you soon!"

by the time i met them, it was around 1am, and ruslan asked "so, where is this club located?"

"oh, we're not going to 'tochka' the club... we're going to pick up girls off the streets of suburban moscow."

"whoa! no way!"

dima just smiled. as a sextalk.ru veteran, he was well educated in p4p, to say the least. ruslan, on the other hand, was apprehensive at first.

"is it safe? isn't that mafia? what if they try to rob us?"

between dima and myself, we were able to assuage his fears, and soon we were all in a happy "wh0re hunting" mood. making the requisite stops at the atm and corner produkty to ensure our bodies were adequately hydrated, we kicked off our odyssey in search of street meat. yaroslavskoye shosse (better known locally as "yaroslavka") was our first destination. located on the northern part of moscow, this major artery is notorious for having tons of "tochki".

the basic idea is to cruise the street and look for a single girl standing by the road. normal girls do not stand by themselves on such roads, especially in the middle of the night, so the chance of a false positive identification is essentially nil. just past mkad, we passed a red zhiguli and a girl standing outside of it. dima pulled over and slowly backed up to the car sitting on the shoulder. the girl peered inside at the three of us, and then asked what we were looking for.

"two girls, to take with us."

"please follow the car."

at this point, dima was becoming apprehensive.

"i've been to tochkas lots of times, and i've never been instructed to follow anyone. be on your guard."

our anxiety levels were rising in direct proportion to the increasing darkness of our environs and the narrowness of the road on which we were being led.
after 5 minutes or so, we arrived at an abandoned factory parking lot fringed with thick foliage and cars parked here and there with no apparent pattern.
we were about to u-turn where in our headlights we recognized the unmistakable outline of a woman's legs in a miniskirt.

"okay... looks like it's legit", dima said, as our tension level dropped a single notch.

not knowing where to go, we waited for someone to approach. within a minute or two, a mamochka appeared out of the thick bushes which were bordering the parking lot. she scrutinized the 3 of us for a few seconds.

"what are you looking for? 1 girl for the 3 of you?" in a tone of voice which hinted "you perverts!"

dima answered, "no, i'm just the driver, we're looking for 2 girls."

"okay, we have girls for 6, 8, 10 and 12 [thousand rubles]."

ruslan answered, "let's see the best you have - 10 and 12."

mamochka disappeared, but we could hear her shouting. about 5 minutes later, the girls started to appear and line up in front of our headlights.
we were chatting nervously, windows up, dima keeping the engine on, and the car in gear just in case we had to make a quick break for it. 10 girls lined up in all. not sure if it were coincidence or not, but the best looking ones were on the left, and the ugliest on the right. on a scale from 1 to 10, they ranged from a single 8, down to a 4, with an average around 6. the girl on the far right, a 30-something chubby brunette with fat tits pouring out of her 2-sizes-too-small liftchik, was angrily cursing at the mamochka.

"fuck! why do we have to stand here so long?"

"shut up and get back in line."

"fuck you, wh0re!"

"shut up and speak nicely, girl! without mat!" mat being the strongest form of profanity used in russian.

chunky girl wasn't going to shut up easily and started to mock the mamochka "without mat! without mat! without mat!"

no doubt the girl knew she was out of her league with that lineup and the frustration was sublimating as vulgarity.

"man, #10 is a class act! we should take her!" dima exclaimed.

we laughed our asses off.

i encouraged ruslan to take the leftmost girl - a stylishly-dressed dirty blonde who appeared to have a pretty face and curvy body. we all agreed she was the pick of the litter.

"but what about you, man? which one do you want?"

girl #3 also looked pretty good: young blonde with a pageboy hairstyle and a cute enough face. but short, and nearly flat chested.

i debated.

"nah, none of these really do it for me. i mean, i could if they were my only choices, but none really inspires me."

"okay, then, let's roll."

"you sure, dude? i mean, #1 is pretty nice."

"nah, let's roll."

before departing, ruslan asked the mamochka, "do you have any other girls?"

mamochka said that they had one more girl available who was putting on some makeup at the moment. we'd just have to wait another minute. all this time, the 10 are just standing there in our headlights, nervously shifting. as the last girl approached, we saw that she was a 6 at best. we thanked the mamochka, and as we started to leave, she warned us that they were the only tochka working that night on yaroslavka.

yeah, right.

"well, thanks for the info. do svidaniya."

and we headed off into the night again. we travelled north another 10 minutes, and sure enough, mamochka was speaking truthfully... no lookouts, no nothing.

"this is really weird," dima said.

"usually, there'd be a girl every few hundred meters."

we u-turned and headed back into moscow. thankfully, we spied another lookout within a few minutes. she was visibly nervous, looking around while speaking to us.

"all the girls are 6500 and up - are you fine with that?"

"sure", ruslan replied.

"okay, go down this road until it ends, then take a left and wait."

it was dark. even darker than the first tochka. other customers were there, both in and out of their cars, but there were no girls to be seen anywhere.
dima was quite nervous at this point, and made the call to bail. as our driver, and much more experienced in these things than ourselves, we supported him 100%.

"so, looks like yaroslavka is dead tonight due to recent raids," dima said as we safely made it back to the major road.

"no worries, boys... there are plenty of options - there's kutuzovsky prospect still, garden ring and if we still don't find anything, we can go to lyublino - there are always several tochkas there. always."

we stopped to refuel both the car and ourselves. optimistically, i picked up a pack of orbit and popped a couple in my mouth as we headed to mozhaika (mozhaiskoye shosse, the continuation of kutuzovsky prospect and the major artery running through west moscow). usually, there are several tochkas on mozhaika, at the bus stops and in the parking lots of the establishments there, such as soviet-era movie theater "minsk".

but that night... zero.

we continued to garden ring, where dima was more bullish about us finding something.

"usually, there are lookouts, or the girls themselves at the head of the little sidestreets."

"you won't get the same selection, usually there's just a few girls hanging out in cars, but the quality can be quite good at times."

but... nothing.

so, we moved onto lyublino, in south east moscow. at this point, it was getting late, past 3am, and we'd been on the road for over two hours.
needless to say, we were regretting that we'd passed over the few wh0res we'd actually seen.

dima tried to cheer us up, "don't worry, guys, there are always girls here. but... it's usually sex on location."

"so, you just do it in your car?"

"yeah, pretty much. just park someplace and get it on. sometimes the girls have an apartment nearby, but not often."

our spirits lifted as we spotted a relative cute and young girl standing by a bus stop. dima pulled over and she was very nervously looking at us.

"i won't go with you," was her curt reply, no doubt thinking we wanted to gangbang her.

"so, only sex here?"

"yes."

as dima sped off, ruslan sarcastically exclaimed "guys! that was an actual wh0re! we saw a wh0re! she was standing right next to me! i mean, i was so close to her that i could have actually touched her or something!"
laughter all around. we were about to turn around again when we saw a car with hazards on. it was dark, but there was clearly a body bending over and talking to the occupant(s). bingo!

"dude!" i said pointing to the right in the distance, "there's another one!"

dima was already in the u-turn lane waiting for the light to turn green, but was adamant to get over there before some other punter was going to steal our chance. once the light turned green, he accelerated like jeff gordon.
as we closed on our prey, it became evident that the "girl" in question bore an uncanny resemblance to alla pugacheva. and i'm not a talking about alla in her prime - the quintessential sultry-voiced darling of the soviet union - but as the elderly, obese media wh0re who can't accept the aging process and insists on dressing decades younger than she should.
though "only" in her 40s (a good bit younger than the real alla), this particular street walker was similarly obese, sporting frizzy bleached hair and an extremely un-flattering short-short cocktail dress that only accentuated the fact that each of her thighs had a circumference similar to my waist.

"good god!" we screeched in unison.

"go go go!!!" i insisted as dima complied and floored the accelerator.

being as it's moscow, it took us another 10 minutes before we could legally make a u-turn. we'd seen a couple girls on the other side and it was looking like our last chance for "love" that night. as with any market featuring something with low supply - there were 3 other cars looking for the same thing as us. we waited our turn for the girls to come over and talk with us. when they finally made it over, we saw that the better looking one was a 5 at best, and the other one was simply un-fuckable. i imagined that they worked days as ticket clerks for the moscow metro, and constantly reminded themselves that each guy they sucked off behind the dumpster put them one step closer to that knock-off, rhinestone-studded d&g purse they'd been eying at rynok for ages.

they said "1000 for bj, another 500 for fs".

"here?"

"yes."

"are you the only girls here, or are there others?"

"just us. take it or leave it."

the answer there was unambiguous, as dima again floored it. at that point, we were all getting tired. it was 3:30 and the sun, though still under the horizon, was beginning to lighten the sky.

"well", dima slowly said, "there *is* one surefire location, out past mkad on shosse entusiastov."

"shosse entusiastov!" i replied brightly, "now that is what i'm talking about!"

for those of you unfamiliar with this particular road, it is one of the most depressing avenues in moscow, dare i say... the world. for whatever reason, the east sides of cities are rarely the best, and moscow is no exception in this regard. shosse entusiastov is lined with a seemingly endess array of deserted factories and soviet-era warehouses. the sparse street lighting, due to low residential density, only lends to the feeling of desperation.
"if i were a street wh0re, that's exactly where i'd want to work!" i said. "let's do it!"

well, by this point you can probably guess what happened. lots of trucks and taxis, but not a single girl on the side of the road. we continued about 10 minutes past mkad before giving up. at this point, it was 4am and all of us were beat.

i nodded off, and by the time i woke up, dima had already driven me to my home.

"well, guys, that was a blast!" as we shook hands and said our goodbyes.

funny enough, we had epicly failed in our objective but ended up having an even more memorable time in the end.

[QUOTE=Pizdyets]"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
- Winston Churchill
.[/QUOTE] Molodyets Pizdyets!!!. Great yarn. Too bad no happy ending.

[QUOTE=Jake993]Molodyets Pizdyets!!!. Great yarn. Too bad no happy ending.[/QUOTE]

Agree, but it's so much more interesting than "picked up some insanely hot girls and shagged them rotten until dawn." There will be other days, and there will be other girls. Maybe tonight even. :)

[QUOTE=Pizdyets]Agree, but it's so much more interesting than "picked up some insanely hot girls and shagged them rotten until dawn." There will be other days, and there will be other girls. Maybe tonight even. :)[/QUOTE]

I posted it to reports of distinction. This one of the best reports I have read here on the ISG. In fact I would go so far as to say that it is another league than the standard report. It actually works as simply excellent writing and takes the reader along on an adventure. As a writer myself I have to say that you have a talent for telling the story.

I would love to read more of this style of report here.

Thanks

AM

[QUOTE=Angus Magee]As a writer myself I have to say that you have a talent for telling the story.

I would love to read more of this style of report here.
[/QUOTE]

(blush)

Thanks, AM. Glad you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it up! I have to admit that Skank inspired me. Though he doesn't contribute as much as he used to, his at-times acerbic, at-times sentimental style is something I can only aspire to achieve.

[QUOTE=Pizdyets](blush)

Thanks, AM. Glad you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it up! I have to admit that Skank inspired me. Though he doesn't contribute as much as he used to, his at-times acerbic, at-times sentimental style is something I can only aspire to achieve.[/QUOTE]


Well we all have our writer heros. I have also enjoyed the Doctors tales and am a fan also of Bez' sometimes short, acerbic but pithy and colorful posts-always complete with pictures.

As for novelists-my favorite has to be TC Boyle. His recent novel about the lives and loves of the famous American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, is a work of pure genius in my opinion.

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/books/review/Scott-t.html?_r=1[/url]

Great stuff Pizdyets!

Sometimes the best adventures have no happy end, such are the glories of life!

[QUOTE=Doctor_Skank]Sometimes the best adventures have no happy end, such are the glories of life![/QUOTE]


And this, unless I am very much mistaken is a very Russian view of life in itself.

For me the flavor of the narrative is much more important than "liking" the ending.

Any place in Tverskaya is good and usually packed with beauties.

Shokolatnitsas are great cause often are busy and table sharing is not rude...plus wallet damage can not be as bad as in a cocktail bar!

If you already dating try Kvartira 44. There is even a piano which I am sure will mellow the coldest of the hearts.

Vigilantexx

[QUOTE=Prosal]Would you mind mentionning your favorites ?[/QUOTE]

I have to admit I was, am and always will be a softy with women. I just manage a GF outside Moscow and one here with the ocassional excuses for my hunting nights out. I simply can not make an arragement based on pure sexual exchange. Either ends up in drama or the end of it. Oh well

Also no matter how hard I try to avoid it girls ALWAYS end up leaving.little by little- items in the flat as a subtle indication of "land possesion" (eg toothpaste, make up cottoms, underwear etc.). Not for that faint hearted when you need to remove that evidence for an unexpected visit!

By the way, I do envy the stamina of some of you guys in the forum. I am on the wrong side of my 30's but sporty and can live on little sleep, however I can not pull many drunken nights during the week or my boss would kick me out of Moscow. My liver also must resemble a sewer. Hence my relative monogamy.

Vigilantexx

[QUOTE=Passepartout]You are right, it's a good question.

I have 5 "partners" in Moscow (don't know if I can call them girlfriends or not). Of course this is impossible to get real GF invested into the relationship. This is why i try to have the following balance:
- 1 and only one real GF invested, and with her I manage to protect my private life easily (no keys; business excuses and so on)
- all the rests are "sport"partners who knows the kind of guy i am and i, in return, never ask questions too.

This is my advice to keep a nice sexual life: to get only 1 real GF and all the rests are girls who wants fun like you, and in Moscow that's alrady enough to be an happy man.

Tricks to protects privacy life:

- no keys
- native community "meetings"
- sport after work
- business meetings

that can free already 3 or 4 night during the week.
The week-end is a more difficult target. Hopefully she will have a mama to see in Iaroslaval or somewhere :-)[/QUOTE]

since some of you seem to enjoy epic tales, the following is an account of my second trip to moscow back in 2005. i may have even posted it but if i did i can't find it. regardless, it still bring a smile to my face whenever i think about it.

reading pizdyet's tale reminded me of it and i thought you guy might enjoy it.

keep in mind that the infoermation is dated and so are the prices and the location of safari lodge as it has closed down and moved since then.

enjoy

*******************************************
this was my 2nd trip to moscow and it was a bust as far as sexual encounters go. too much work, too much client entertaining and too much vodka put me in a bad position to capitalize on anything meaningful. but i did come close one night when a small group of us tried to what we came to call “the trifecta” which started with dinner at night flight, followed by fondling strippers at the safari lodge on pokrovka followed by a late night visit to boar house for “take out”.

i had flown directly to moscow from the states the day before and the jet lag was kicking my ass. it was about 4:00 pm and i was just nodding off for a few winks in my hotel room (marriott grand) when my phone rang. it was my boss and he had just arrived from the uk. he informed me that he had just checked in at the hotel and that my presence was required in his room for cocktails. it was past 7:00 pm in the uk and as far as he was concerned, the bar was open. what could i do? when duty calls…….

after catching up over drinks my boss revealed that this was actually his first time to moscow and in fact his first trip to russia. since this was my second trip he was expecting me to be an expert already and to ensure that he would be sufficiently entertained. luckily, my expat friend al had lived in moscow for several years and knew the lay of the land. i called al and explained my situation asking if he would not mind joining us for an “evening of fun” playing tour guide. he happily agreed and that’s when the idea of the trifecta was hatched. we agreed to meet at night flight at 9:30 pm for dinner and would go on from there. working hard on the bottle of scotch for a few more hours ensured that we would be well lubricated upon our arrival to night flight. we agreed to meet up with ildar, our colleague from azerbaijan at 9:00 pm in the bar at the marriott so at 8:45 pm i stopped by my room to splash a little cold water on my face and grab my coat.

after a quick beer with ildar, we set off on foot to night flight. it was a cool evening in march but by no means cold so it was really quite pleasant. boss’s head was snapping to and fro looking at the girls parading down tverskaya. while it wasn’t summer time when he could really enjoy the sights, every second girl walking down tverskaya was a runway model dressed impeccably and prancing down the street with that detached far-away look in their eyes. when we arrived at nf we checked coats and went right up stairs. al was already there and had selected a table near the top of the stairs. for anyone who has dined at night flight, you will know that there is a bit of a “floor show” presentation. some of the early birds in the lounge downstairs will come upstairs to use the ladies room as an excuse to check out who is eating dinner in the restaurant. for those who eat dinner in the restaurant upstairs, the $40 cover charge to the lounge downstairs is waived so there is certainly a method to this dinner strategy. and if you eat dinner upstairs why would not visit the lounge before heading off.

while ordering dinner, i was presented with the wine list and tried to select a wine that was not going to break the budget when boss suggested that since we were in russia, we really should be drinking vodka. there was a little voice somewhere in the back of my head advising me against ordering vodka but it was quickly ignored and i ordered a nice chilled bottle of russian standard. unfortunately, one bottle was not enough and we topped off the dinner with another half liter of vodka followed by the obligatory after dinner drink down in the lounge. we were happily chatting up girls when al decided it was time to move on to the safari lodge. we grabbed cab on the street and headed off.

the safari lodge is what every strip club should be. it is absolutely surreal. housed in the basement of a shashlik place on pokrovka, the safari lodge is literally a pit of decadence. after you check you coat you descend the stairs to the club. immediately to one side is a typical bar and to the left is an open area with a banquette couch that follows the wall. there’s a small stage in front where dancers “warm up” before they join the “rodizio”. anyone who has ever been to a brazilian bbq knows that eating rodizo style involved servers with long skewers of meat who make the rounds. well, it’s the same thing at sl – minus the skewers. make no mistake – this is not a strip club; it’s a lap dancing club. you take your seat on the banquette and a topless girl plops herself down on your lap and grinds away for the duration of the song. and unlike other parts of the world, manual participation is encouraged. when the song is over, you pay her r100 and (this is the best part) she takes a step to her right and plops herself down on the lap of the guy to your left while the next pretty little topless thing takes her turn with you. etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, so on and so forth……………. it’s a beautiful thing.

of course there is a private dance room which is a complete waste of time imho because you get the same dance in private. the only difference is that the girl takes her bottoms off as well. but because there’s no sex offered i just don’t understand the attraction of the private dance. r1,000 for 3 songs in private vs r300 for 3 songs out with everyone else? i just don’t get it. oh well, to each his own. you would think that at r100 a dance you could stay there forever but you would be surprised at how quickly you can burn though a couple hundred bucks. and for those who are ready for something a little more interesting there is the dacha dance. the sl keeps an apartment or two reserved for “special activities” complete with bed shower and i think one even has a jacuzzi. on this particular night none in our group opted for the dd. we were all happy getting our fill of vodka soaked bliss with seeming endless handfuls of young flesh. tall ones, short ones, blonde nordic pixies and voluptuous tatars. what a smorgasbord of sensual delight. somewhere along the line i think we switched back to drinking scotch and boss kept bringing me drinks that he must have paid for with his visa card. he had just arrived in moscow he kept on asking for r100 notes; i must have made at least two trips to the bankomat (atm) strategically situated on the street in front of the club top get more cash. clever idea.

it was getting pretty late and after much coaxing, we made our way up the stairs and onto the street to hit the boar house. as usual, there were several cabs out front and ildar (who actually grew up in azerbaijan) started negotiating with the driver of a nice audi. al immediately objected to the choices saying the audi driver was going to “rip us off” for the short drive to the bh and started negotiating with the driver of a broken down lada. ildar said it would cost us $20 for the 10 minute trip to the bh and al proudly proclaimed that it would cost us only $5 for the lada. against all better judgment, four of us got into the lada. it turned out to be a very bad move because we were half way to the board house we got pulled over by the local police. thinking back i know why we got pulled over. while the three “white guys” were crammed into the back seat, ildar (who was born in azerbaijan) was sitting up front. so here is this broken down lada driving down sadovya ring crammed full with 4 passengers with a tajik driver and the stereotypical guy from the caucasus sitting in the passenger seat. hell, i would have pulled us over.

when the police saw us go by, he must have thought that we were a group of illegals from one of the “stans” (uzbekistan, kazakhstan, turkmenistan, or perhaps armenia). russians from moscow and saint petersburg are a little bit racist and they don’t particularly like people from the former soviet republics so when they saw us they thought they were going to be able to shake us down for money hoping that our paper work wasn’t in order. so when they stopped is and hauled us out of the car they started demanding to see our passports. btw – everyone in russia is required to carry a passport which is really a generic term for identification. if the cops ask for it, you have to show it. no big deal. another thing you need to know is that you must have your passport registered with the authorities within 48 hours of arriving (i think). normally you give your passport to the hotel desk and they take care of it in a few hours.

what boss forgot to tell me was that he had neglected to collect his passport from the front desk of the marriott before we left for the evening. oh shit. here we were at 4:00 am drunk out of our minds and one of us whit no passport. we tried to explain this to the pimply faced cop (who looked to be about 17) but he seemed unimpressed and told us would have to go down to the police station and pay a fine. i don’t know what came over me but i got so pissed off that i pulled out my cell phone, pretended to call the us embassy (in moscow) and told ildar to ask the cop which police station he was taking us to so that the duty officer from the embassy could send someone down to sort this out. now the cop started yelling, telling me to shut up and put my phone away. of course, i was not having any of this and became even more insistent to take us to the police station.

pretty soon, the police supervisor stepped out of the police van. to this point he kept his cool but now he was getting pissed off and told everyone to calm down. he pulled the young cop off to the side and had a few words with him. i don’t know what he actually said but he must not have wanted to create an international incident. if he couldn’t get cash out of us on the spot, he wasn’t interested in taking us down to the station. he sent the young cop back to the van and told all to get back in the taxi. he pulled ildar aside and pull him close for a conversation. while ildar grew up in baku, he went to boarding school in moscow and knows his way around despite his not being over vocal about the stupid mistakes we had made that night. he explained the situation to the police supervisor who was not impressed and proceeded to rip a strip off of ildar. my russian is not great now and it was even poorer back then but the gist of the conversation went like this, “i would expect this sort of crap from those foreign idiots, but not you who should know better than to drive around in a piece of shit car like this. get back in the car and get back to the hotel this instant and don’t even think about going anywhere else until that stupid brit gets his papers in order”. so naturally, we thanked him, offered him $50 for his trouble and got back in the cab. of course we told the driver to keep heading for the boar house!!!

the whole affair with the cop must have been too much for me because i barely remember walking into the bh and i certainly don’t remember leaving either. what i do remember is waking up the next morning at the hotel with splitting headache and the sense that i was not alone in my bed. oh – my – god. what the hell happened? i had not done anything like this since college. mongering is one thing, but drinking yourself into a fog in moscow is something else indeed. when my eyes focused again i could see that i was in bed with an african girl and my heart stopped. don’t get me wrong, i’m not a racist but because moscow has a serious problem with sdts and hiv and there is more than an insignificant number of skanky h00kers from uganda running around moscow. i looked around the room and noticed that it was light. what time was it? oh shit, my head hurt.

i scanned the floor beside the bed and saw my clothes piled in a heap. i peered under the covers and was relieved to discover that i still had my underwear on. whew! i reached down and picked up my pants and hoping to find my passport and my wallet. those were the last things i needed to have missing. i searched all the pockets and came up empty. fuck! what the hell happened? wow, my head hurt.

i reached for my cell phone to call al so i could start of make sense of what happened and realized that i didn’t have that either. damn, this was getting from bad to worse. i slipped out of bed and though maybe my passport, wallet and cell phone were sitting on the desk beside my laptop which i was sure i left plugged in only to discover my laptop was gone too. what the fuck happed last night. cripes, my head hurt.

i had written al’s office number on the hotel memo pad by the phone the night before and gave him a quick call to see if he could offer some explanations. i called al and when he answered the phone he burst into laughter and asked me how “my little friend” was. according to al, when we arrived at the bh we stood at the far end of the bar down near the working girls from uganda. apparently, she just invited herself over and decided to be my chaperone for the evening while i dealt with my jet lag and vodka. when it was time to leave she just decided that she was coming home with me and that was that.

i told him to forget about the girl and asked him to help me figure out what had happened to my passport, wallet and cell phone. “have you tried your room safe”, he asked. “room safe – good idea” and asked him to told on a minute while i punched the number into the keypad. “holy shit”, i said out loud when i discovered that everything including my laptop was in the safe and went back to the phone. “how in the hell did i have the presence of mind to put that shit in the safe”, i asked al. he just laughed and told me to “have a nice morning” and hung up.

relieved that i had found my valuables, i crawled slowly back into bed to figure out what i was going to do next. as i said earlier, i am not racist but black girls are just not “my thing”. but damn, she had a fine body i discovered as i peered under the covers to discover that she was wearing lacy bra and panties. if my head splitting hang over was not progressing so splendidly, i would have thought seriously about “tearing off a piece” of this fine looking ass. but i literally was bleeding to death through the eyes and just realized that i had no idea what might have happened to the my boss. crap.

i began to still a little more in the hopes that my little guest would wake up. soon, she began to stir and slowly he eyes opened. a soft glance at first followed by a quizzical look and then recognition and rage. it was like setting off a bomb. immediately, this girl started yelling at me and giving me so much shit that i wished the cops would have taken me to jail the night before. clearly this gal came home with me hoping for a date but ended up babysitting a drunk. according to my little “gandy girl” i was so drunk and sleepy that she had to hold me up at the bar for hours. “why did you have to drink so much? where the hell do you think you are? this is not america. this is moscow. what the hell kind of friends do you have to let you do this?” on and on came the accusation and insults. the louder she got the worse my head pounded. i was in hell.

“what time is it?”, she demanded. “i can’t stay here all day; i must go”. “good idea”, i thought. “get the hell out of here and leave me in peace to die”. she stormed around the room collecting her things and disappeared into the bathroom. i used the opportunity to call the boss and discovered that he had suffered pretty much the same fate and was still in bed with a hot little blond named irina. nice. i was surprised to learn that we actually shared a cab home and that i was speaking russian to the cab driver. unbelievable.

she stormed out of the bathroom and demanded that i pay her. “pay you”? i asked. “why should i pay you? we clearly didn’t have sex”. clearly that was not the response she was looking for. salvo number two – boom, she ripped another strip off me for how drunk i was and how hard she worked holding me up at the bar and how i was sooooo drunk. blah, blah, blah, blah…… man, if i wanted to get my ass chewed like that i sure didn’t need to travel 6,000 miles to have it done. “didn’t have sex”, she spat at me. “didn’t have sex? what i had to do last night was worse than sex!!”

i sheepishly met up with ildar and the boss a few hours later for a late lunch. we sat quietly as i ate a salad hoping that the pounding would soon stop. drinking the pepsi was starting to have a healing effect on my head and the fog in my eyes slowly began to lift. ildar, looked across the table at me and shook his head in disgust. “stupid american”, he said. "you come all this way from texas to moscow to fuck a black girl".