“You won’t find anything like this in Moscow,” Kolya Dubinko, a St Petersburg native, insists. We’re sitting on a wooden bench next to an old sailing boat outside newly opened bar/club Machty (Masts). The venue – which on this particular evening is hosting a selection of techno DJs and producers on Moscow label Gost Zvuk Records – occupies a former factory known as Priboi that once produced radio-electronics. It’s in a relatively secluded spot at the far end ofVasilievsky Island, one of the oldest parts of the city, on the Shkiperskiy canal. Machty simultaneously reflects the city’s intimate relationship with water (St Petersburg has 93 rivers and canals and 800 bridges), its industrial Soviet past and its 18th-century baroque architecture. Kolya ushers me through a small gate that leads to the canalembankment and I’m hit by biting wind from the Gulf of Finland, laced with smells of fish and engine oil.
St Petersburg has endured its fair share of suffering: from its construction in the early 18th century, which cost the lives of thousands of serfs, to its siege during the second world war, then the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing chaos, when it reverted to being called St Petersburg, having been Leningrad for the duration of Soviet rule. All this change has left its mark on the city.
In 2017, St Petersburg is most often rememberedfor providing the historical backdrop to one of the most significant events of the 20th century: the Russian Revolution. One hundred years on, a young generation is making its mark on the city’s nightlife, music, food and art scenes. I’ve spent a lot of time in St Petersburg over the past six years and – in the year in which Russia celebrates a century since the revolution – I’m eager to see the latest developments in the country’s “cultural capital” (before another punishing winter sets in).
Clubs and music venues
A 20-minute walk from Machty, another newly opened venue embodies the city’s contrasts: Port Sevkabel. Also on the site of a former factory (a 19th-century one this time) it has a red-brick facade and its extensivealleys, courtyards and towering chimney – while not yet entirely open – have already hosted a session with live-stream DJ platform Boiler Room, a concert with UK band Hidden Orchestra, exhibitions by local artists and a round-table discussion featuring Troy Conrad Therrien, a curator at the Guggenheim in New York. Restaurants, cafes, museums, hostels and festivals are in the pipeline, too.
The nightlife scene is bolstered by spaces such as Club Mosaique – in a courtyard on Konyushennaya Square, a stone tunnel-like structure packed with partygoers at weekends, hosting local and foreign DJ talent – and newer club Kuznya, in the city’s New Holland Island, an 18th-century manmade island turned outdoor park and cultural centre. New Holland has an array of shops and cafes and regularly hosts lectures and screenings. The lavishly decorated Kuznya fuses restaurant, cocktail bar and nightclub and hosts frequent electronic music nights. In Moscow, by contrast, clubs have tended to have shorter lifespans; many of Moscow’s great venues have been forced to shut in the past few years. Most recently, in August, Moscow’s DIY club Rabitza was raided by police – a scene captured on film and shared widely online.
I talk about this to young producer Yulia Sigareva, a co-founder of experimental record label Bore Hole, who moved back to the city after a brief stint in the capital.
“Nightlife venues and promoters in St Petersburg, by comparison with Moscow, manage to maintain a stable position,” she says. Keen to establish a space in which experimental musicians can showcase their sounds, Yulia and a few of her friends are planning to open a club, connected to but distinct from Bore Hole. Close to the Obvodni canal, south of the city centre, the club will open its doors to the public in early December and will doubtless be a place to watch.
I ask Yulia to talk me through some of the important promoters in the city. One of these is Roots United, which runs a party series called OFF at another hybrid exhibition space/music venue called the Artplay, a 1,000-capacity building with a network of rooms and installations popular with St Petersburg’s electronic music enthusiasts.
Roots United also runs Present Perfect Festival at the Street Art Museum, in another former factory with a stone courtyard and an extensive plot of shipping containers in the suburban district of Novocherkasskaya.
Food and drink
Another young pair making their mark on the city are Liza Simonova and her business partner Maurice Shakaya.Still in their mid-20s, they opened their first cafe – a bagel shop named BGL, in 2012 – but it was their venture into Georgian cuisine, with Khachapuri I Vino two years ago, that brought them success. They now have a chain of eight restaurants.
I meet them at one of these, Lev I Ptichka (The Lion and the Bird), in a quiet precinct off the busy Bolshoy Prospekt. Its centrepiece is a wood-fired oven but the decor is minimalist with wooden furniture and floors; hospitable Georgia meets understated Scandinavia. “Georgian restaurants tended to be dark and dingy, with delicious food but terrible service, so they weren’t particularly pleasant to be in,” says Liza. “They had a Soviet format but we wanted to create a place where young people would feel at home.”
Georgian food is to Russians what Indian food is to Brits in terms of its popularity and ubiquity but here traditional dishes come with a contemporary twist, such as pizzas made with Georgian khachapuri dough and spicy lamb. Unusually low prices (an average bill is under £8) were a response to the economic crisis following the annexing of Crimea in 2014 – a decision that won over its younger customers.
Another restaurant that attracts a younger crowd with low prices and authentic food is Bekitzer, which serves Israeli favourites, such as shakshuka (spicy eggs) and falafel. At the slightly higher end is Duo Gastrobar, a Scandi-inspired restaurant that uses locally sourced products to makeEuropean classics.
Art scene and bars
One young artist who’s working hard to push the city’s experimental art scene forward is Polina Zinziver, whose multimedia illustrations are a comical “psychedelic” take on absurd moments of Russian life, particularly in her home city.
She takes me to the Berthold Centre, another new arts cluster in a former foundry near the city centre. From its grey stone exterior, which could easily be mistaken for a residential building, you wouldn’t guess that it houses a large exhibition hall, a theatre studio and a wealth of independent fashion boutiques run by young people, including Rediska Project (women’s fashion), vintage shop Ever Sale and much more. Polina’s works were shown in the Berhold Centre in July this year.
We move on to Treska, a snug bar/restaurant where Polina and fellow artists organise art fairs to showcase and sell their work, with a strictly enforced 500 rouble (£6) price cap. It’s in the courtyard of Golitsyn Loft, a newly restored 18th-century mansion on the Fontanka river (it’s also home to Civil Books Coffee and Wine, with marble fireplaces and high stucco ceilings). Treska hosts a wide range of film screenings, exhibitions and poetry readings, and serves bar snacks and drinks till late. A stone’s throw away is Produkty Bar, an intimate space with a jukebox, also on the Fontanka river.
On nearby Nekrasova street are three bars that attract loyal regulars among the city’s intelligentsia: Bazin, an unassuming, friendly spot; Khroniki, which is open until the early hours and serves waffles and a signature Free Ingria cocktail, made with vodka and local berries, which has garnered city-wide fame; and Redrum, a craft beer heaven.
As the night goes on we head to Co-op Garage Bar, an open-plan bar with exposed brick walls that’s a favourite haunt of the city’s fashionistas. Its outside space is a perfect spot to relish the “white nights” (at the end of May and in June, when there are only three hours of darkness). Within spitting distance, on the Griboyedov canal, is Pif Paf, a long and narrow drinking bar complete with hair salon that is a hit with the city’s artists and rock musicians. Over a beer, Polina and I discuss the many times the city has lived through periods of dramatic change. “Actually,” she tells me, “yesterday I was at the concert of a very old punk band and the main soloist said ‘Well, in the city of three revolutions, you’ll get a fourth.’”
- Flights were provided by British Airways (britishairways.com), which flies direct from London to St Petersburg from £72 each way.
