Onyx bird: the closure of the Soho Rooms club and the end of the era of glamor in Russia
On April 22, the most expensive and pretentious venue in Moscow, the Soho Rooms club, is closing. The last stronghold of the glamorous 2000s is being seen off by Kommersant columnist Alexander Voronov.
Soho Rooms is a little short of a decade - quite a respectable age by the standards of clubs in Moscow. An old three-level mansion with stucco on Savvinskaya Embankment, fireplaces, mirrors in gilded frames, furniture “from the palace”, a Swarovski ball chandelier, peeped at the London grocery store Hediard, and a rooftop pool. Nine years ago, Soho Rooms opened at the height of the $100-a-barrel era, when affluent glamorous clubbers en masse had just gotten a taste of throwing money at VIP boxes and carrying huge bottles of champagne with fireworks.
The competition for the target audience among establishments then went in two directions - who has more wealth in the interior and who has more ingenious gadgets. It was possible to surprise the visitor with the technique: they used flying around the hall, like your pannochka in Viy, DJ platforms (like in the Famous club) and giant “palace” chandeliers spinning around their axis (The Most). With the decoration, everything was simpler, and it rarely went beyond the exaggerated plastic moldings and prefabricated structures that looked decent only in the twilight. In Soho Rooms, they decided not only not to waste time on trifles, but made a separate bet on chic. If the railings were cast iron, if the floors were teak, as in a megayacht, if the bar was made of marble and bronze, and the drink counter was entirely carved from onyx. Dance floor for five hundred people, a balcony with a deposit of 10 thousand euros; from above, sun loungers and glass walls with a slightly schizophrenic view of the chimneys of the smoking CHP-12.
It was stated that all the beauty cost 8 million euros. The owners of the club, expat investment bankers Dan Rappoport and Dominique Gualtieri, were flirting: they said that they built the site for themselves and were not even going to let anyone into it. By the way, other Moscow bastions of glamor were also flaunted with teak and onyx in the interior, which, however, were quickly closed. Whereas in front of Soho Rooms for almost 10 years, a string of limousines flashing on an emergency gang lined up in two rows with drivers whiled away the time waiting for their owners at car TVs in 2007 and watching TV shows on smartphones in 2017. Forbidding road signs and evacuators - as well as changing milestones in the city, country, world - had almost no effect on this string.
This stability has several explanations. Firstly, the owners lured businessmen not to dance, but to eat - for which four chefs were immediately assigned to the Rooms, one of whom fed Bill Clinton. Secondly, it was possible to eat something only if you were discharged to smithereens. The fact is that in Soho Rooms the practice of Moscow “feis kontrol”, as it was called in the glorious one, has reached its climax. Not a single modern fashionista, say, a dressed-down Seoul street fashion fan, would go there - if, of course, he had not changed into an outfit from The Great Gatsby in advance. “People should not be embarrassed that they can wear a chic dress and diamonds to us,” the site workers explained. The impregnability of the club on Savvinskaya Embankment, by the way, was used by enterprising neighbors: for example, five years ago in the bar "1171" you could meet not only upset and nowhere girls, but also satisfied with life guys from the regions who had no idea that they had the wrong door and came to get drunk NOT IN SOHO ROOMS.
And even the 2013 Soho videos look like they were shot in another dimension.
In general, this procedure is a mandatory filtering according to the degree of high cost appearance instead entrance tickets- In Moscow, the Yugoslav institution Jazz Café brought into fashion back in the late 1990s. Since then, requests for face control in Moscow's glamorous establishments have only grown. Already in the 2000s, in the Shambhala bar on Kuznetsky Most, where Sinisa Lazarevich, an employee of Jazz Café, worked, this phenomenon reached such an anecdotal scale that it occurred to some journalists to hire extra security guards and come up with a legend about the visit of a non-existent Hollywood producer in order to go inside to dance.
But even the whims of the chief face controller of the 2000s, who stood to his death in Shambhala and Diaghilev, faded compared to Soho Rooms. Plain - white is better - shirts, dresses and shoes in order. No sneakers, Vetements T-shirts and other exceptions, unless you are Philip Kirkorov or Pavel Volya - a regular at Soho Rooms.
A typical picture from a club: a fashion show, an after-party of a film screening or another secular party, say, "Golden People" of the same Volya. “Hit alcohol music”, as the promoters themselves defined it, blares from the speakers. On the balcony, fashion designer Roberto Cavalli smokes a cigar with relish, arm in arm with a model. Aging playboys were generally comfortable here: in last years in the club it was possible to meet citizens over sixty, and, according to the stories, Berlusconi himself somehow curled around the Russian girls. There were also club trips - of course, not to Rostov or Kislovodsk, but to an ideologically more right places like Monaco and Courchevel. It was like this: Vera Brezhneva and DJ Smash are thundering, beauties are dancing on the tables, and the rapper is honking furiously with sparklers
It is tempting to announce that there will be no more daring luxury - neither in Moscow, nor in Russia. However, this is not quite true. For example, very soon an establishment of the owner of Gipsy and Icon should open on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, which, according to rumors, is largely focused on the same audience as Soho. Simply conspicuous consumption, millionaires with cigars and half-naked blondes in stilettos, from which it pricks the eyes, are now only part of the shocking diversity of the landscape. And the era of Putin's unbridled glamor of the 2000s is officially declared closed.
On April 22, the most expensive and pretentious venue in Moscow, the Soho Rooms club, is closing. The last stronghold of the glamorous 2000s is being seen off by Kommersant columnist Alexander Voronov.
Soho Rooms is a little short of a decade - quite a respectable age by the standards of clubs in Moscow. An old three-level mansion with stucco on Savvinskaya Embankment, fireplaces, mirrors in gilded frames, furniture “from the palace”, a Swarovski ball chandelier, peeped at the London grocery store Hediard, and a rooftop pool. Nine years ago, Soho Rooms opened at the height of the $100-a-barrel era, when affluent glamorous clubbers en masse had just gotten a taste of throwing money at VIP boxes and carrying huge bottles of champagne with fireworks.
The competition for the target audience among establishments then went in two directions - who has more wealth in the interior and who has more ingenious gadgets. It was possible to surprise the visitor with the technique: they used flying around the hall, like your pannochka in Viy, DJ platforms (like in the Famous club) and giant “palace” chandeliers spinning around their axis (The Most). With the decoration, everything was simpler, and it rarely went beyond the exaggerated plastic moldings and prefabricated structures that looked decent only in the twilight. In Soho Rooms, they decided not only not to waste time on trifles, but made a separate bet on chic. If the railings were cast iron, if the floors were teak, as in a megayacht, if the bar was made of marble and bronze, and the drink counter was entirely carved from onyx. Dance floor for five hundred people, a balcony with a deposit of 10 thousand euros; from above, sun loungers and glass walls with a slightly schizophrenic view of the chimneys of the smoking CHP-12.
It was stated that all the beauty cost 8 million euros. The owners of the club, expat investment bankers Dan Rappoport and Dominique Gualtieri, were flirting: they said that they built the site for themselves and were not even going to let anyone into it. By the way, other Moscow bastions of glamor were also flaunted with teak and onyx in the interior, which, however, were quickly closed. Whereas in front of Soho Rooms for almost 10 years, a string of limousines flashing on an emergency gang lined up in two rows with drivers whiled away the time waiting for their owners at car TVs in 2007 and watching TV shows on smartphones in 2017. Forbidding road signs and tow trucks - as well as changing milestones in the city, country, world - had almost no effect on this string.
This stability has several explanations. Firstly, the owners lured businessmen not to dance, but to eat - for which four chefs were immediately assigned to the Rooms, one of whom fed Bill Clinton. Secondly, it was possible to eat something only if you were discharged to smithereens. The fact is that in Soho Rooms the practice of Moscow's "feis kontrol", as it was called in the notorious expat newspaper The eXile, has reached its climax. Not a single modern fashionista, say, a dressed-down Seoul street fashion fan, would go there - if, of course, he had not changed into an outfit from The Great Gatsby in advance. “People should not be embarrassed that they can wear a chic dress and diamonds to us,” the site workers explained. The impregnability of the club on Savvinskaya Embankment, by the way, was used by enterprising neighbors: for example, five years ago, the bar "1171" could meet not only upset and nowhere girls, but also happy guys from the regions who did not even suspect that they had the wrong door and came to get drunk NOT IN SOHO ROOMS.
In general, this procedure - mandatory filtering by the degree of high cost of appearance instead of entrance tickets - was brought into fashion in Moscow back in the late 1990s by the Yugoslav Jazz Café. Since then, requests for face control in Moscow's glamorous establishments have only grown. Already in the 2000s, in the Shambhala bar on Kuznetsky Most, where Sinisa Lazarevich, an employee of Jazz Café, worked, this phenomenon reached such an anecdotal scale that it occurred to some journalists to hire extra security guards and come up with a legend about the visit of a non-existent Hollywood producer in order to go inside to dance.
But even the whims of the chief face controller of the 2000s, Pavel Pichugin, who stood to his death in Shambhala and Diaghilev, faded compared to Soho Rooms. Plain - white is better - shirts, dresses and shoes in order. No sneakers, Vetements T-shirts and other exceptions, unless you are Philip Kirkorov or Pavel Volya - a regular at Soho Rooms.
A typical picture from a club: a fashion show, an after-party of a film screening or another secular party, say, "Golden People" of the same Volya. “Hit alcohol music”, as the promoters themselves defined it, blares from the speakers. On the balcony, fashion designer Roberto Cavalli smokes a cigar with relish, arm in arm with a model. It was generally comfortable for aging playboys here: in recent years, it was possible to meet citizens over sixty at the club, and, according to the stories, Berlusconi himself somehow curled around Russian girls. There were also club trips - of course, not to Rostov or Kislovodsk, but to ideologically more correct places like Monaco and Courchevel. It was like this: Vera Brezhneva and DJ Smash are thundering, beauties are dancing on the tables, and rapper Timati is signaling furiously with sparklers ...
At this pace, Soho Rooms has been hanging out much longer than the others, except that with the crisis it stopped carrying packs of Western artists. For five years now, the former “Paradise” has not had a VIP filling, even Viktor Taknov’s “Roof of the World” has recently closed - another symbol of that era, although the club was more about techno than about glamour. But now the wave has reached the last prosperous platform. Moreover, in Soho Rooms they say that they close not because they “do not pay off” or are “tired”, but simply because “... the world has changed a little”.
It is tempting to announce that there will be no more daring luxury - neither in Moscow, nor in Russia. However, this is not quite true. For example, very soon an establishment of Gipsy and Icon owner Mikhail Danilov is to open on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, which, according to rumors, largely focuses on the same audience as Soho. Simply conspicuous consumption, millionaires with cigars and half-naked blondes in stilettos, from which it pricks the eyes, are now only part of the shocking diversity of the landscape. And the era of unrestrained Putin's the glamor of the 2000s is declared officially closed.
Alexey Kulagin, co-founder of Soho Rooms, told Rusbase how he and his partners created one of the most famous clubs in Moscow, what difficulties they encountered in the process, and also shared Soho Family's plans for the future.
It all started with for students
Today Soho Family is a whole holding of bars, clubs, restaurants and even projects in Dubai, but once we started with a small team of four people. It all started when the dean of my institute asked me in 2001 to organize a student New Year's party. We decided that the Metropol Hotel would be ideal for this event. Agreed on rent, which was then paid at the expense of entrance tickets. Invited students, artists, DJs.
Then I still had little understanding of this matter, the party was held in the format, but very successfully. I enjoyed organizing them and ended up hosting about three such events.
I decided to hold one of them in the cult club "Garage" on Pushkinskaya. At first, its managers were interested in attracting a new audience, but then they appreciated the event itself and offered me to work for them further. It was here that I met restaurateur Dmitry Braude, Irakli Pirtskhalava and Sergey Tkachenko. This was the start of my career. Then Slava Martynenko appeared in our team.
We started organizing our shows
The four of us (Pirtskhalava left the project and went to the Star Factory) were developing the Garage. For a year of work we managed to collect a large audience. At one point, we realized that we needed to expand. At this time, Artem Zvezdinsky joined us, and we created a project called Dlux Promo.
Each of us was responsible for what we were strong in. So, the senior partner - Sergey - coordinated us, communicated with management and management. Slava was responsible for show productions, music, lighting, involved in attracting DJs and dancers. Artem and I were responsible for creative marketing, attracting guests, searching for new partners and sponsors.
We agreed with Alexei Gorobiy, the owner of Shambhala, the most famous club in Moscow at that time, that he would give us Thursdays for parties.
So, Wednesday and Sunday were the key days at Garage, Thursdays we did at Shambhala, making it the best place. Then the legendary club of Vladimir Potanin "Stone" came under the wing of our team. We organized our own shows, staged productions, promoted our own DJs and MCs. It turned into a kind of subculture, which began to be interested.
How we created the Infiniti Club
In 2003, Alexander Tolmatsky invited us to Arlekino. It was a large cinema center in the center of Moscow on Krasnaya Presnya. In its place, it was decided to create the first big club in Moscow under the name Infiniti. We also opened a restaurant and cafe there. About $300,000 was invested in the opening. We refurbished the concert hall, found employees, launched advertising.
As a result, this place became very popular, about 4 thousand people came to the opening alone. We managed to create a new "palace of youth". Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Craig David and other world stars performed at Infiniti for the first time in Russia.
By 2006, when Infinity was at the peak of popularity, under the leadership of Alexander Tolmatsky, my team and I launched the first hip-hop radio station NEXT FM and made author's programs there. We also participated in writing the script for the sensational series "The Club".
Alexey Kulagin
Our next project was the Opera club. The two-level hall was equipped with luxurious boxes, the middle of the dance floor was decorated with a round spinning bar, and the huge stage made it look like a real opera. Unlike all previous projects, this one was less focused on the hip-hop / R "n" B genres. On Saturdays we had mash-up parties where all dance styles were mixed.
How did the idea for Soho Rooms come about?
At some point, we realized that we had grown up, became self-sufficient and ready to launch a solo project. Together with restaurateur Dmitry Braude, we assessed the market, and it became obvious that Moscow was ready for the format of elite events.
Such institutions already existed on the market, but, frankly, not in the best performance, in our opinion. We wanted to do something more fundamental and status. Then, in my opinion, the most grandiose idea was born - the creation of Soho Rooms, where Dmitry Braude was the like-minded person of the project.
To realize the idea, we cooperated with Dmitry and our team and began to implement the project. In total, the construction cost $7 million. Investments for further development were already out of working capital.
We chose the location for a very long time. According to our idea, it was supposed to be a separate building in the center of Moscow on the banks of the river. We focused on the trendy Soho districts of New York and London. Hence the concept and the name.
There clubs were built on the embankments away from the hustle and bustle, where there is a lot of space and air. Savvinskaya embankment was ideally suited to our criteria. We found the premises, completely reconstructed it according to our design project.
In the club
The old building of the XIX century has changed beyond recognition! It was a very complex project in terms of architecture. In addition to the fact that we managed to place a terrace and a swimming pool on the roof, we understood that the most demanding guests would evaluate us. They opened gradually, first a bar, a restaurant, a club, then a terrace. Fully operational began in 2008.
Why we decided to work in the Western market
We wanted to host the entire beau monde, combined with expats and representatives of international companies, socialites, famous personalities and show business stars. To do this, we decided to use the effect of closeness, inaccessibility and inaccessibility. And they didn't fail.
The rule “everything classified as secret” has become the main feature of our concept. No cameras, no press! So, we invited 200 people to the opening, who were carefully chosen, because these people became our target audience. Then word of mouth worked: relying only on the feedback of their friends, people reached out to us. Our guests brought with them the entire audience with which we have been working for many years.
But we understood that it was impossible to stay in this niche for a long time, so we began to enter the Western market, making closed parties. For several years in a row, we have rented only top establishments for our guests - in Monte Carlo, Courchevel, Las Vegas.
Rumors about Soho Rooms grew, as did the queues at its doors. People offered insane amounts to get to us! Those who could not get into the club were offended by our approach, like many competitors - by our success.
About the difficulties in the work of the club
At that time, there were already many successful projects. By opening Soho, we attracted a large audience - clubs, bars, and restaurants. Naturally, our competitors did not like it. They began to put sticks in our wheels: there were checks, tow trucks, and mask shows.
So, one night, guys in masks, with cameras, came to us and started looking for something. Fortunately, our guests, who included several billionaires and Craig David, reacted correctly: no one left.
Craig David was generally delighted and filmed this spectacle on the phone. Of course, everything was resolved peacefully, but it was clear that they just wanted to make it unpleasant for us.
There were also funny cases. A year and a half after the launch of Soho Rooms, I traveled around Russia and visited the most fashionable club in one of the cities. I walk in, touch the doorknob, and a sense of deja vu overwhelms me. In embarrassment, I look around and understand that the interior is completely copied from ours, including stucco molding and a fireplace! It's nice to realize that we have created the product that they are trying to replicate in the regions.
Club interior
We also faced the repurchase of artists. It happened that they invited someone to speak with us, but a couple of days before the event they found out that competitors simply outbid them. For any institution, this is a serious blow to the image. Sometimes we fought, but most of the time we just smiled and moved on. Throughout the existence of Soho, there have been a lot of such stories. However, not a single attempt by competitors could harm our reputation. We did our job honestly and persevered.
Later in 2014, we realized that we needed to provide guests with something new and thought about launching SOHO Country Club: a restaurant, a yacht club, a swimming pool. Now the most respectable guests could rest in the protected area, on the shore of the Picturesque Bay. A circle has formed here, and visitors know that they will meet familiar faces and enjoy the atmosphere created by Soho Family.
We realized that Soho needed a new format
So we worked for 9 years, in April 2017 we closed for reconstruction. We realized that Soho needed a new format. Our community has grown with us. It was decided to create a SOHO FAMILY CLUB holding - Soho Rooms, Soho Country Club. Also, two projects were implemented on the territory of the Trekhgornaya manufactory: the restaurant “Cafe Druzhba. Food Manufactory” with affordable prices and no dress code and a private club Secret Room.
The Ball Room by Soho Rooms concert and banquet venue, the On the Wave restaurant and the terrace with the Soho Show will be launched very soon. And in 2018, we will open Soho Space in Dubai, which will include Praia Restaurant, Secret Room Dubai and Soho Beach Club.
Why we became successful
I believe that we can rightfully be considered innovators in the world of recreation and entertainment. We managed to create a whole entertainment holding. This was easy to achieve. And the foundation of our success was a properly assembled team, where everyone contributes to the common cause.
The team assumes:
Closeness of perception of values
Single language
General clear rules
Clearly defined roles
Work for results
Shared responsibility
Turning a group of strangers into a team of like-minded people is a very difficult task. It is important here that team members, despite their statuses, perceive each other as equal parts of a single whole. Main result team interaction - a synergistic effect in which there is a mutual reinforcement of the intellectual and creative abilities of each team member.
It is equally important to choose the right location, to attract professionals in all aspects for the organization: from architecture, installation of technical equipment to cooks and waiters. Do not skimp on the quality of service.
The atmosphere is incredibly important. We were distinguished by the fact that every day we did something new and creative. In our clubs, the scenery was constantly changing, we did theme parties sewed suits. There was a show.
People need to be constantly surprised, so each of our parties had its own theme: Brazilian, Hawaiian, Spanish. Then we began to educate our DJs, MCs, drew culture from foreign channels, attracted show business stars, models. As a result, visitors could have a good rest and spend time. The most important thing for us is to see satisfied visitors, this is the most valuable reward in our work.
Soho Rooms is a little short of a decade - quite a respectable age by the standards of clubs in Moscow. An old three-level mansion with stucco on Savvinskaya Embankment, fireplaces, mirrors in gilded frames, furniture “from the palace”, a Swarovski ball chandelier, peeped at the London grocery store Hediard, and a rooftop pool. Nine years ago, Soho Rooms opened at the height of the $100-a-barrel era, when affluent glamorous clubbers en masse had just gotten a taste of throwing money at VIP boxes and carrying huge bottles of champagne with fireworks.
The competition for the target audience among establishments then went in two directions - who has more wealth in the interior and who has more ingenious gadgets. It was possible to surprise the visitor with the technique: they used flying around the hall, like your pannochka in Viy, DJ platforms (like in the Famous club) and giant “palace” chandeliers spinning around their axis (The Most). With the decoration, everything was simpler, and it rarely went beyond the exaggerated plastic moldings and prefabricated structures that looked decent only in the twilight. In Soho Rooms, they decided not only not to waste time on trifles, but made a separate bet on chic. If the railings were cast iron, if the floors were teak, as in a megayacht, if the bar was made of marble and bronze, and the drink counter was entirely carved from onyx. Dance floor for five hundred people, a balcony with a deposit of 10 thousand euros; from above, sun loungers and glass walls with a slightly schizophrenic view of the chimneys of the smoking CHP-12.
It was stated that all the beauty cost 8 million euros. The owners of the club, expat investment bankers Dan Rappoport and Dominique Gualtieri, were flirting: they said that they built the site for themselves and were not even going to let anyone into it. By the way, other Moscow bastions of glamor were also flaunted with teak and onyx in the interior, which, however, were quickly closed. Whereas in front of Soho Rooms for almost 10 years, a string of limousines flashing on an emergency gang lined up in two rows with drivers whiled away the time waiting for their owners at car TVs in 2007 and watching TV shows on smartphones in 2017. Forbidding road signs and tow trucks - as well as changing milestones in the city, country, world - had almost no effect on this string.
This stability has several explanations. Firstly, the owners lured businessmen not to dance, but to eat - for which four chefs were immediately assigned to the Rooms, one of whom fed Bill Clinton. Secondly, it was possible to eat something only if you were discharged to smithereens. The fact is that in Soho Rooms the practice of Moscow “feis kontrol”, as it was called in the glorious one, has reached its climax. Not a single modern fashionista, say, a dressed-down Seoul street fashion fan, would go there - if, of course, he had not changed into an outfit from The Great Gatsby in advance. “People should not be embarrassed that they can wear a chic dress and diamonds to us,” the site workers explained. The impregnability of the club on Savvinskaya Embankment, by the way, was used by enterprising neighbors: for example, five years ago in the bar "1171" you could meet not only upset girls who didn't get anywhere, but also guys from the regions who were happy with their lives and did not even suspect that they were mistaken door and came to get drunk NOT IN SOHO ROOMS.
And even the 2013 Soho videos look like they were shot in another dimension.
In general, this procedure - mandatory filtering by the degree of high cost of appearance instead of entrance tickets - was brought into fashion in Moscow back in the late 1990s by the Yugoslav Jazz Café. Since then, requests for face control in Moscow's glamorous establishments have only grown. Already in the 2000s, in the Shambhala bar on Kuznetsky Most, where Sinisa Lazarevich, an employee of Jazz Café, worked, this phenomenon reached such an anecdotal scale that it occurred to some journalists to hire extra security guards and come up with a legend about the visit of a non-existent Hollywood producer in order to go inside to dance.
But even the whims of the chief face controller of the 2000s, who stood to his death in Shambhala and Diaghilev, faded compared to Soho Rooms. Plain - white is better - shirts, dresses and shoes in order. No sneakers, Vetements T-shirts and other exceptions, unless you are Philip Kirkorov or Pavel Volya - a regular at Soho Rooms.
A typical picture from a club: a fashion show, an after-party of a film screening or another secular party, say, "Golden People" of the same Volya. “Hit alcohol music”, as the promoters themselves defined it, blares from the speakers. On the balcony, fashion designer Roberto Cavalli smokes a cigar with relish, arm in arm with a model. It was generally comfortable for aging playboys here: in recent years, it was possible to meet citizens over sixty at the club, and, according to the stories, Berlusconi himself somehow curled around Russian girls. There were also club trips - of course, not to Rostov or Kislovodsk, but to ideologically more correct places like Monaco and Courchevel. It was like this: Vera Brezhneva and DJ Smash are thundering, beauties are dancing on the tables, and the rapper is honking furiously with sparklers ...
Try to guess on what principle this gallery of characters from the Soho Rooms club is composed. If you do not understand after the third picture, then you can consider yourself inattentive. Answer to last photo
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