In Which a Stripshow is Attended

04.10.2008

Alright, so, most of yesterday was just stupid, so I'm only going to devote a couple sentences to the stupidity since the description of nighttime activities will be fairly long. Basically, I decided it was going to be a productive day, so I went around to buy things that I needed. I got success in all except the most important: Abbyy Lingvo. After consistent failures and realising how difficult my life is going to be if I don't get that damned electronic dictionary THIS WEEKEND, I was in a terrible mood.

HOWEVER.

Maneka and I went to Tri El' last night, which is St. Petersburg's only lesbian night club (and, sadly, is closing in November). Ilana and Vika were going to go with us, but they decided to go hom when we reached the metro station, because they were too drunk. Sad. Anyway, Maneka and I pushed onwards, with plans of going there and only spending a couple hours, heading home before the metro closes.

Well, when we got there, they asked for 100 rubles from each of us. Then the doorperson gave me a look, and asked for our documents, which we showed to her, then she charged me 400 rubles. I guess she thought I was a woman when I first entered. I'm glad I haven't broken my track record for gender ambiguity in crowds which should be well tuned to such things. In any case, Maneka felt bad and paid part of my cover (their website said they only charge 150 for men on Fridays; they only ever even let men in on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays). So we went in.

All of the tables had "reserved" signs on them, and the club was actually pretty empty. Which was unsurprising, since it was only like 10:30. Maneka was disappointed, and I told her Central Station was the same, and people don't really start rolling in until midnight. So we wandered around a little bit, got a bunch of odd looks, then went out onto the dancefloor, where there were more tables that were "reserved." We sat down for a bit, then saw this one woman dancing by herself and figured we'd get some dancing in, too.

By this point we decided to stay for the rest of the night, since it cost so damn much to get me in, and Maneka really wanted to stay. So I just sent a text to my host mom, and at around midnight the place started to get really busy (except, there were only like 3-4 guys, myself included, in the club at any one time).

I... really just kind of prefer lesbian crowds to gay crowds, in general. I also like watching them dance, more -- There was a lot more pairing up, and it was very clear that most of these people were couples. In a gay club, any pairing up is mostly just a one-night hook-up, and it's kind of depressing.

In any case, I was just there to have fun, so I didn't have any sort of expectations. And a lot of girls were giving me obvious looks trying to figure out if I were a guy or a girl. Unfortunately, no one talked to us. HOWEVER, there was this crazy girl on the dance floor -- she had long black hair, and she was wearing grey skinny jeans, a striped white button-up shirt, a tie, and a pair of heels. Overall, she was very Russian. And she kept bumping into us even though there were only like five people total on the dance floor. At one point she bumped into Maneka and freaked out, exclaiming "Простите, простите!" (Forgive me, forgive me! Very formal..) and kissed her hand. I so wanted to be friends with this girl.

It was also interesting to see the Russian lesbian culture. Mullets were abound, but mullets are abound in Russia altogether, so that was unsurprising. The crowd was actually pretty evenly split between your 'average looking' stereotyped lesbians, the contemporary sort of punkish lesbians, and the very Russian women who were all dressed up and so forth.

The bar had a fairly large nonalcoholic section... so I drank two "молочный коктель" (molochnij koktel', milk cocktail) which was ... three scoops of ice cream and some milk in a blender. It was delicious. I'm going to start making that shit when I get home.

When we were getting ready to leave at like 3 in the morning, some announcement came on over the dance floor that we couldn't understand, and it was clear that some sort of show was about to start. Well, a drag queen emcee came on stage, and I was ... expecting the worst. She was saying weird things, and like, we could understand most everything except the last line, and she would always rhyme the last line. I don't know, it's hard to explain. Anyway, they were clearly jokes, as everyone was laughing and clapping after she finished.

So, alright. I'm going to explain as much as I can, but, what ensued turned out to be THE BEST DRAG SHOW I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY FUCKING LIFE. PERIOD. There were four performers total, including the emcee -- one was a woman, the other three were men dressed as women. There was only one instance of drag kinging, unfortunately, when they dragged a poor audience member up on the stage and forced her to lipsync the male part of a soviet pop song. The first act was a strange orientalist pseudo-bellydancing sort of thing with techno in the back. It was well done for what it was, but the SECOND act... was just... I was blown away. The premise was this: Two "girls" came on stage with a little handheld radio, and they keep changing stations and dancing around to the music on the radio -- The sound was clearly done in one track, so they had to have PERFECT timing for each time they switched radio stations. And they did. Two particular portions of this piece stand out -- At one point it switches to this Russian artist whose name currently escapes me -- he's sort of an icon here; he has a really gravelly voice and sings bizarre songs very folkishly. He's dead now, but in any case, during this song they pull out a flask and act very Russian. I can't even explain it, really. Then they turn on a hip hop song and a third performer comes on stage wearing tremendously baggy clothing and a hood, and they act all thuggish, when suddenly one of them pulls up his pants and he's wearing ... red leather high heeled boots? The two girls freak out and start ripping off his clothes, and the song changes to Alla Pugacheva (Russia's Cher, only 2837492375 times better), and underneath the thug clothing (s)he's wearing a rainbow wig, a gold glitter dress, and all other sorts of draggish things.

Overall, I was just so damned impressed because they had so much emotion, their timing and performance was just so damned flawless, and it was so damned Russian and creative. Their other performances were all entirely different, all very unique, and all very well done. Only at one point did they do a solo-diva-drag-bullshit thing, but that was because the other performers needed to get ready, I'm assuming (having had to deal with that before).

About an hour after that, Maneka and I are sitting in the (very pleasantly well-lit) bar area, when another announcement comes on that we can't understand and everyone flocks into the bar area... Music starts and ... It's a strip show? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my first strip show was at a lesbian bar, it seems. Anyway, this girl who had been walking around in her underwear all night comes in in a long black dress and super high platformed heels (Her hair was also really cool - it was sort of a really short deathhawk). She danced around and eventually folded her dress down, leaving her top half bare, blah blah blah. In any case, she was a good dancer.

Then she leaves, and another beautiful woman comes out and does a fantastic but oversexed bellydance routine on the bar -- no stripping, though. Her hair was also beautiful; it was pulled back in a topknot, perfectly straight, and went down to her waist. After this, she leaves and the other girl comes back wearing little, and dances around, comes very dangerously close to me several times, and by the end is just wearing a thong and a small bra... whatever. The second girl comes back and they both do a routine in which they are wearing even less. I didn't feel particularly awkward, because it was in a lesbian bar, and when they were dancing up on people, the people were being very sheepish and such. So, from a feminist standpoint, it wasn't sickeningly degrading to women for the fact that everyone was respectful, and it was performed by women for women. Of course, I'm sure some would argue that the very act of stripping is inherently degrading to women, but go to hell.

Anyway, at about 5:30am we went to the metro station and parted ways. It was a night well spent.

Today is another stupid day, however, as it has taken me 40 minutes to post this entry. I have been looking for internets all day so I could download an electronic dictionary to get through these FIFTY PAGES OF READING IN RUSSIAN ABOUT DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA'S REGIONS, but I have entirely failed. But LJ is working fairly well so I'm catching up on Ben's and Jen's entries. Since their journals are the only ones working (P.S., Jen, yes, I do read your journal, but I never comment because I have to read fast, as to not piss off people behind me in the daily computer queue)