A chocolaty night

Last night we went out to Chocolate, as Andrea had never been but had wanted to go as she heard lots about it. It is the newest Russian club in town, out of about 5 in the Russian quarter. This one though is one special place. It is all underground with the entrance down a red escalator with red velvet drapes overhead. Once inside the club is designed around a dance floor with 2 poles (you can guess what they get used for). Behind is a stage with a couple of platforms (you can also guess what they are for) framed by massive photo frames, so the dancers almost look like they are in the photo frames. Surrounding the dance floor are probably 100 tables which match the chairs in style: the chairs are velvet backed and golden framed as if they are from a 17th century palace banquet room. On the ceiling, everywhere, are handing face down, hundreds of large fake french paintings, each one 2m x 3m or so and around the outside of the club are a couple of bars.

At the back is another room with pool tables, as well as a kids area, believe or not, though most of the clientele (and predominantly non-Russian, unlike all the other Russian clubs, but maybe this club is just too garish even for the Russians, or there are not enough Russians to fill the club) sit and drink vodka, or dance to the awful Russian band. Around midnight the show starts with the girls coming out and 'exotic dancing' though they don't actually take their clothes off. It is one strange experience.

This afternoon i got a call from a random Russian guy that it seems i gave by business card to last night, and whom i communicated with in Chinese, since i speak no Russian, and he speaks no English. Hopefully he won't call again as i really have nothing to say to him. Although i am keen to find out just what is appealing about Chocolate, apart from its strangeness and exotic dancers.

The Russian quarter in Beijing is very distinctive with at least 3 shopping malls of 3 floors each purely for Russian clientele: the Chinese sales people there even speak Russian. there are several Russian restaurants of course selling hearty Russian food and vodka too, as well as Treasure Island, the precursor (but still in existence) to Chocolate with its own exotic dancers that was perfect for Leon's stag earlier this year. Yet the strangest thing about the Russian quarter is that it is not near the Russian Embassy!