Dance-music club Portfolio was opened with the idea of achieving popularity and success with record speed. However, its plans notwithstanding, the club did not really reach a high level of popularity until it introduced theme parties six months after having opened.

On Jan. 27, they held one such party of club veterans, entitled "Flashback," at which nearly all of Moscow’s party notables assembled. The crowd was so big one had to spend a whole hour standing in the line to the checkroom, which, by the way, is obviously too small for the club’s dimensions. Additionally, the club’s "Mir bez deneg" ("World Without Money") electronic credit payment system forced us to spend another hour in line to leave the place.

But the party effectively compensated for any negative emotions patrons might have acquired standing in line. Popular DJs Volodya, Kubikov, Sanches and List spun classic dance tracks. The fashion show, "1993-2000," featuring fragments of the legendary collections of Masha Tsigal, Olga Soldatova and brothers Polushkiny, had a grandiose success.

The club’s interior is minimalist in style and modern enough to pass for a New Russian penthouse, with lots of mirrors and soft divans. There is a spacious dance floor, and the music, though loud, is not obtrusive. In addition to the dance floor the venue offers a bar and a restaurant offering European cuisine. On the second floor there is a tearoom with a DJ playing lounge music.

It would have been a wonderful night if it had not been for the two hours wasted in the lines listening to 90 percent of the visitors obscenely cursing the club’s promoter.

PORTFOLIO
6 Malaya Dmitrovka Ul.
Metro: Chekhovskaya
Tel: 200-0280/82
Hours: 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Cover: None
Face control: Moderate

Yet another club opened in Moscow on Jan. 25 – Sprut (Octopus) – a strip-and-dance club. If its owners had not called it a "club" I would have considered it a bar, primarily owing to its modest dimensions. Sprut is the cheapest strip-and-dance bar in the city. They charge no cover and beers cost 40-90 rubles. Predictably, the joint was packed full with drunken students on Friday and Saturday night.

The club is designed, as one might expect from its name, with aquatic themes. The club’s owners, though, definitely have a good sense of humor. Patrons at the club’s opening night discovered unfinished restrooms on the second floor, in addition to a huge pile of construction materials lying by the entrance of a non-existent checkroom that builders "forgot" to install.

Entertainment, meanwhile, was limited to deafening music mixed by techno DJs from the "Station" radio station and female strippers desperately trying to encourage visitors to strip down. The clientele, obviously mostly male, were less than keen to indulge in this, however. Not unusually for a cheap strip venue, the dancing girls seemed questionably young. More surprisingly, the crowd seemed less than impressed by their performance.

Late at night there was an MTV-style disco, though by that time the dance floor was populated only by a handful of lonely old men doing their usual job.

Maybe an interesting experience, but it’s questionable whether or not Sprut merits the status of even a third-class bar.

SPRUT
2/4 Turgenevskaya Ploshchad
Metro: Turgenevskaya
Tel: 921-8146
Hours: 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Cover: none