This is Truth.

Road House

Friday night I was wondering through a quiet neighborhood which was distinctly un-Soviet, but at the same time lacking the grandiose Orthodox/European pretensions of the Center. It was almost quaint, and I have found nothing about this city to describe as quaint. Out of some half-lit half-open pub windows, I heard a live rendition of a John Lee Hooker standard, and considered myself at home.

Road House was a pleasant shock. I was the youngest patron in the bar by at least 10 years, probably 20. The beer was cheap and the music was excellent. After “Dimples”, the quintet played “Hoochie Coochie Man”, with all the discreet flair and genuine soul you could possibly ask for in a two room restaurant/bar 8 bazillion kilometers from the birthplace of blues. The crowd of 25 or so people at the tables kept demanding they play more, and the band kept delivering.

Between a couple of sets, the frazzled overweight frontman came over to the bar where I was sitting, seeking another drink for the band's tab. You wondered if this was their paycheck. While I assumed from his delivery that he was from the American south, my “nice work up there” was greeted with a toothless “Shto??” Apparently Yuri is from Georgia – the country – as well as most of the rest of the band, which made their final encore, apparently one of his originals, entitled “Aint Goin Back to Georgia” all the sweeter. The irony wasn’t lost on anyone in the all-Russian crowd, as the regulars sang along in thick Slavonic drawls. Even the 40 year old with the 'Russian Rocket from Rocky 4' haircut who was dancing like it was 1986 at some Soviet underground new wave cokefest. The few-years-shy-of-babushka moms with acid washed hair and tight stonewashed jeans had such a fine sense of rhythm to such down tempo blues that it defied all explanation.

The 40 year old guy in the floral pattern button-down sitting next to me at the three-stool bar got up and sang a few bars of "I'm in the Mood", and quite well. When I complimented him later, I found him to be an American and a highly placed official at the World Bank’s Russian office. Not an expected Friday at 11pm conversation. Probably for either of us, really.

He had some interesting perspectives on life in Russia. He claimed that he was constantly giving press interviews, and while he is frequently misquoted or mischaracterized, it is by both the Russian and American press. "The NYT and all them, they have their ideas about the World Bank, and my interviews with them essentially are them trying to goad or lead me into saying what they want to report...they have their beliefs about the World Bank, and they're out to write that story." On the other hand, "the Russian press mischaracterizes me as a way of saying something about the government that they couldnt otherwise say" because of limits on press freedoms.

After the music, we left and continued chatting. In a hep-cat jazz drawl he said that he wanted to go to some place downtown that I would like, if I wanted to check the place out. After the ride to Teatralnaya and the wandering through the somewhat quiet streets (nightlife here starts at midnight) while chatting about Russian culture and bond ratings, only to find the Big Bear Pub had vanished entirely.

A pane of broken glass and a ‘for rent’ sign. Off to Monaco, one step ahead of the tax collectors. “All the best places close,” he said, defeated. Again, hep-cat jazz drawl: "Well, there's always stripteeesee, if youre into that..." I wasn't. The conversation kind of ended there. As you might imagine.

Remind me if I ever talk to him again to take that part out.

posted by Майлз Г. Смит @ 1:11 AM