"an abyss of hedonistic pleasure"

October 12, 2015 5:15 PM

"The room was upholstered in crimson and oatmeal and decorated with Socialist Realist frescoes of industrious maidens. A hefty multipointed star descended from the ceiling like a satellite returning from space. Above the tables a pair of identical life-size plaster statues of Soviet schoolgirls faced each other in the manner of temple guardians. They drummed on drums with a look of patriotic ecstasy; crimson blindfolds bound their eyes. Taking a swig of kvas, a fermented bread beverage that's slightly reminiscent of root beer, I wondered whether the statues were intended to be a political statement, nostalgic kitsch, or just a really ambitious exercise in color coordination." - The Surreal Thrill Of Moscow Dining by Alex Halberstadt
posted by The Whelk (13 comments total)

$700 breakfasts? This is why we have revolutions, people.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:11 PM on October 12, 2015 [15 favorites]

The Czar would be small change to today's billionaires but just who would you rebel against? Organize a massive rebellion against an Apple Store? Get everyone to stop using the internet to kill off GoogleAlphabet? The governments are at best figureheads to the corporate overloads, the new boss same as... well no, actually much worse.

I do have one intellectual curiosity about vast money, would my taste in food change if I had a google level idea and became "fu" rich? Few of these dishes seem to have any appeal. Just curious, though it'd be nice to have a jet.
posted by sammyo at 6:27 PM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Now there's an eponysterical comment if there ever was one, leotrotsky.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:29 PM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Please don't pick on trotsky.
posted by Behemoth at 6:34 PM on October 12, 2015 [11 favorites]

What we need to do is radical, a subversive attack against the very bulwark of the uber-rich international military industrial information foodie complex.

Airdrop food trucks into Moscow.
posted by sammyo at 6:39 PM on October 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

If I can't eat raw octopus to the tinkling of a harpsichord, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
posted by Rangi at 7:41 PM on October 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

The Czar would be small change to today's billionaires but just who would you rebel against? Organize a massive rebellion against an Apple Store? Get everyone to stop using the internet to kill off GoogleAlphabet? The governments are at best figureheads to the corporate overloads, the new boss same as... well no, actually much worse.

So one thing to remember is that right now in Russia the whole thing is run by actual oligarchs with regular meatsack bodies, faces, and addresses.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:14 PM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

The Czar would be small change to today's billionaires but just who would you rebel against? Organize a massive rebellion against an Apple Store? Get everyone to stop using the internet to kill off GoogleAlphabet? The governments are at best figureheads to the corporate overloads, the new boss same as... well no, actually much worse.

I believe historical best practice for dealing with the logistical problems presented in revolution against a government controlled by the rich typically involves seizing the means of production.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:12 PM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

That article was delicious. I could feel my arteries hardening after the first few paragraphs out of sympathy for the writer. Lovely stuff.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:51 PM on October 12, 2015

I'm kind of sad the bright shirt moment of upper class Russian mobster menswear has apparently passed, all those wonderfully garish suits and actual batman villain outfits. Menswear could always use more color.
posted by The Whelk at 10:54 PM on October 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

How cool, it's like a modern-day Russian version of "Diners and Dining" (remember, the Victorian London one we had a while ago). Love all the weird little vignettes like about the Lower House representatives toasting "To Moscow" and descriptions like the wine that "tasted like a stained glass windows in a medieval church looks".
posted by yoHighness at 3:53 AM on October 13, 2015

That is delightful writing; a couple of sample paragraphs:

To imagine the main dining room, picture being shrunk and then dropped bodily into a Fabergé egg. The two-story space is covered floor to ceiling in picture-frame gilt, Ming-style vases, cupids, and divans upholstered in damask, all arranged around a chandelier so large and purple that it reduces first-time visitors to wordless staring. At dinner women in crinolines and powdered wigs play Baroque string instruments, a harpsichord, and a harp under the gleaming chinoiserie.

. . .

Dinner was delivered by the brothers themselves, who turned out to be disconcertingly young and soap-opera handsome. Their dishes resembled edible Magritte canvases, like a branch covered with glistening red berries that turned out to be made of chicken liver. A mystery broth alternated sour black-currant-filled dumplings with foie-gras-filled sweeter ones. A quantity of bark was set aflame. One dish arrived atop a birch stump that was later opened to reveal another dish inside it. When my friend and I complimented their cooking, the Berzutskys pressed their hands to their hearts and nodded gravely, like opera singers at a curtain call. ​​

I'm glad to know the dining scene is so varied and you can get good food now; when I was in Moscow in the '70s, the restaurants were wretched (these were, of course, the ones where tourists were taken; I have no idea where the elite met to eat). I wish I could get back to see what's become of the gray city I felt so oppressed by!

> $700 breakfasts? This is why we have revolutions, people.

I'll forgive you because of your username, but it's usually a good idea to hold the snark when it's been preempted by the author: "To eat at Selfie is to gain insight into why the Bolshevik Revolution happened in Russia."
posted by languagehat at 11:28 AM on October 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Some of that food sounds absolutely delightful.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:23 PM on October 13, 2015