Oo banja banja

After a long night out banja is just the perfect place to relax. Herbal smells of banja will make you a new person again! Tea and orange juice also tasted today better than before. Aaahhh, lovely! After the banja we had a dinner at Bellezza (http://www.bellezzaclub.ru), a restaurant/club close by. This was maybe little bit more expensive than most of the places where I have been before but the food was ok. Portions were not too big but I was still very full when we left. 

The Blast

Our tummies full of delicious Georgian food, we took a taxi with my Russian friend. We were going to the Krizis Zhanra club and the taxi driver said that he knows the place. Well, of course he didn't and we did some sight seeing... It was actually good because we were able to pick up my Finnish friend too. This club was a little bit tricky to find (http://kriziszhanra.ru), you might be just 10 metres away from the entrance and you don't really realize that you are almost there. The face control was not a problem today and we entered this wonderful dark club where you can often find good live music. We came here to see a Russian band called The Blast (http://theblast.ru), well, actually they are from Armenia... My Russian friend is a big fan of this band; they have been touring for example with bands like Oasis and Blur. Their gig started around 3 am, so we had plenty of time to have some drinks... The hit for tonight was Sambuca, it's a shot made from strong Anise liquor and after flaming it some fried coffee beans will be added... It's little bit sweet but great! The main band for the evening was hanging around the bar too and my Finnish friend noticed that he actually knows the singer of the band... Maybe the weirdest thing with their gig was that they were also playing some British hits. People here like hearing cover songs so much?? Sometimes even the warm up band can play hits of the main band and then the main band will play them again with their own set... Hmmm, strange thing to a little Finn! The stage was not much bigger than a raisin but feeling was just so fantastic, we were dancing like hell =) The whole night was very funny and great! After 6.30 am we got back to the street again and the morning sun was so bright... Kind of odd that nobody didn't through us out! Later I realized that this club is open 24 hours and you can have a breakfast there too.

Georgian kitchen

There was a bigger group of us having a dinner tonight at the Georgian restaurant called Tiflis, located close to Park Kultury metro station (http://www.tiflis.ru). Very nice! This was organised by my Australian friend and I must say it was just a beautiful place with a special atmosphere. Food itself was also lovely, little bit like Indian but not really... We had many different kind of starters and there was all the time new stuff coming to the table when there was a little empty space for it. It wasn't even possible to think about the main course after this huge set. This time I had to skip the vodka with my Russian friend because we had another party to go to...

Moby

After seeing all Finnish bands we were starving and decided to test the menu at Ikra. It was actually surprisingly good (this is a club after all), everything we ordered was very tasty. After our late dinner it was already the time for another event: Moby's record release party. The place was decorated with some retro looking tellies and some men dressed up in white were doing funny posings around the club. Moby itself wasn't here but there was a video connection to his home in New York... Cool =) This skull has really nothing to do with this but I just had to take a photo of it too because I love skulls...

News from Helsinki

There was an interesting event "News from Helsinki" at Ikra club organised by the people in Finnish music business. Three Finnish bands were playing tonight: Damn Seagulls, Boomhauer and The Winyls. I asked a Russian friend of mine to join me (http://nobullshit.ru/ikra/08032701)... Seagulls started the evening with a good show. I didn't really like the signer of Boomhauer, his American style cowboy aksent was just too much and most of the time their bass player was showing his back to audience... Their set was rocking but after ten minutes you kind of expect something to happen, in my opinion it would have needed some contrast... Well, last but certainly not least: The Winyls! They had just a fantastic gig with so much energy that some of their instruments were sometimes missing too ;-) Just excellent live band! If you ever have a change to go to see them, go! I wish they can be seen in Moscow soon again because the biggest Russian record company was very interested in them, vow!

Seeing the doctor

Getting the work permit in Moscow is not exactly very simple, you need to have many different kind of documents for it. One of them is the health certificate. You need to give a blood sample for HIV test, do urine test, take x-rays of you lungs and after all that go to see a doctor too. He will ask you all kinds of questions, for example about your narcological dependance. In addition, the HIV test needs to be renewed every three months, nice ;-) To get all of this done, I went to this private clinic called SOS International (10th floor) last week and today I just picked up the results & papers. It's kind of funny that some people working at the clinic were very impressed by the quality of Finnish clinics but still my Finnish papers were not good enough in this country. The best thing about this clinic was probably finally to get a "spravka". It's a document you need before you can enter to some swimming pools. It says that you don't have any diseases and it's safe for you to swim in a pool, it also needs to be signed by a Russian doctor. I have heard that you can surprise, surprise also buy this document. However, I was happy to get it for free this time! Maybe it was a bonus for those 14 500 Rubles I had to pay last time... Yeeeeah, can't wait to go swimming now =)

Summer photos

I was visiting this opening party of the photographic exhibition with my colleague. This was kind of small exhibition built up with extremely low budget, less than 300 Rubles were spent... just make you Zerox sing and open the sails! There is a longer story behind this exhibition and the photographer Serge wanted it to be translated to me too – aah, he is just a lovely man :-) To make it short this time... all photos in this exhibition were taken during one day on a nudist beach close to St Petersburg. The whole thing was completely unplanned but Serge & his friends were very lucky for example to be able to rent a sailing boat too. It looks that they had a great time during that sunny summer day and absolutely no worries about anything. I wish it would be summer already, I would like to be in a nice place together with a picnic basket...

The Red Square

This place is so popular that it may not need any introduction – St Basil Catedral is probably the most famous building in Russia. It looks very beautiful in evening lights too! The former state owned department store GUM has lovely lights too, like a fairy tale... It actually reminds me of a cookie house :-) Very often when I'm at the Red Square I think about Mathias Rust; he must have looked so cool when he was landing here with his aeroplane in 80's, vow!

Sushi

Sushi is very unbelievably popular in Moscow. You can only wish to have fresh fish here because the sea is pretty far away and I don't think anybody really wants to touch anything that has been swimming is Moskva river. Price doesn't tell much about the quality, so you just need to know the best sushi places. It's also quite normal here to add some extra mayonnaise to maki rolls. Earlier I had fairly good sushi at Maki Cafe, it's a bar popular among many foreigners and expats. One good Japanese restaurant recommended by one of my Russian friends can be found close to one entrance of Kitai-Gorod metro station. It's little bit tricky to find because it's located downstairs of another cafe but it certainly is worth going to. They even have a Japanese river with some fish... Cool!

Lights of Arbat

A rainy afternoon can be spent as a tourist around Arbat. There is actually two streets with similar names but they look quite different from each other. Ulitsa Arbat (ulitsa = street) is just for pedestrians and the spirit reminds of the good old times in Moscow. Here you can find souvenirs shops, cafes, street musicians and a street market with traditional Russian winter hats or matrushka dolls. Hard Rock Cafe is also here and some time ago Starbucks opened their cafe too. However, this is not the place to walk around with Rubles in your back pocket (not that it is a good idea anywhere in Moscow), there might be some pickpockets... Just behind the corner (close to Arbatskaya metro station) can be found soviet style wide street called Novyi Arbat. This highway has six lanes but quite often there is still traffic jams. Pedestrian areas on both sides of the street are wide too and many shops, offices and bling-bling casinos are located here. Lights are not to be saved, it kind of looks interesting & funny. I can tell you this would never be possible in Finland (there is so many laws about everything you can do with public areas)! 

Starlite

If you are feeling hungry in the middle of the night, the place to go is Starlite: http://www.starlite.ru. This American diner is open for 24 hours and besides burgers and snacks you can find maybe the best milk shakes on earth. There is so much cream on it that you may not want to count calories but the taste is just from heaven! I think this mustard face tells quite much about the quality of fun we had...

UK bands at Tons

Evening is not perfect without some rock music :-) There were two bands from UK playing at 16 Tons.

Petrovitch

After the dinner we went to see this blues musician called Petrovitch (http://www.harmonicaman.ru) to Roadhouse (http://www.roadhouse.ru). Blues is not my biggest favourite type of music but this band had just a fantastic gig. The mixing table looked also interesting, I have never seen so small version! You can find some friendly staff behind the bar and a good collection of notes from different countries... 

Ukrainian restaurant

This cosy Ukrainian restaurant can be found close to Novokuznetskaya station. We had a lovely dinner here with some of my Russian friends. The menu was so thick (like a bible) that it took a while to decide what would you like to have. One of the things I tasted was vareniki with cherries, absolutely delicious. Part of the fun was this special kind of vodka flavored with sun fried plums. I was been informed that the third shot is always taken to celebrate your parents ;-) Cheers, or Na zdorovie!

Boscobar

Boscobar is THE cafe/bar in Moscow. It's just the right place to be if you want to call your friends around the world and tell them that you are in Moscow. You will find Boscobar at GUM (street level) and there really is a great view over the Red Square. You can even drink your cappuccino in a Finnish design chair :-)

Kremlin

I have been in Moscow almost for two months now, so it's about the time to go to see the main tourist attraction. We started our visit with queueing for half an hour for the tickets...

Damskaya vodka

This vodka for women was launched in Russia in the beginning of this year. Today there was some news about in Finnish newspapers too: http://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/200803197408126_ul.shtml Yes, of course we all know that vodka is not more harmful to you than chocolate... but who actually wants to go under Marilyn's skirt, women hands up?