Russian clubs in nyc

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I spent last Saturday in the throes of a fever dream. 40s, supper club-style restaurants were popular evening destinations across America, designed to host and entertain patrons from cocktail hour through post-dinner dancing in a clubby yet sophisticated atmosphere. The area quickly became crowded with Russian nightclubs and restaurants, offering late nights of dancing fueled by vodka and blini with black caviar. These venues celebrated a couple decades of great success before steadily declining due to decreased Russian immigration to the US and the further integration of young generations of Russian speakers into contemporary American culture. After stepping off the frozen boardwalk, we entered Tatiana and were greeted with pounding, bass-heavy music and lights cast low and blue. It felt vaguely like entering a wedding reception we weren’t invited to.

We managed to flag down the host and were quickly ushered to a table practically on top of the wooden dance floor and accompanying stage. Tatiana is known for its weekend extravaganzas, pairing copious amounts of food with over-the-top entertainment and dancing. Saturday is the night to go, as it’s typically the most festive of the week. My friend and I made a laughably small party in comparison to the other collections of revelers, likely because the banquet menu that is offered serves enough for at least four people. It felt like we’d crashed a wedding, a bar mitzvah, a sweet sixteen, and a bridal shower. Dining here is a high-energy production.

At one point, our waiter stood in an obvious state of great anxiety as we played plate Tetris with half a dozen half-eaten appetizers. We were piling cold meats onto mayonnaise-smothered salads, strips of cheese onto pureed eggplant. In the midst of appetizer mayhem, four people materialized on the stage before us. From our vantage point, we could see everything and were probably among the first to glimpse this glitzy group.

Adam Levine was accompanied by three equally attractive and engaging performers: another man in a three piece suit and two women in floor-length, prom-like sequined gowns. The energy was ramping up and I could hear my heart in my ears as I joined the garlic-scented masses. It was ridiculous and terribly fun, and then, without warning, the evening’s party shifted into its next phase. We were asked once again to take our seats and a table was rolled to the center of the dance floor. It’s customary, clearly to this day, to celebrate achievements and milestones as a Russian community at these supper clubs. We go there for birthdays and anniversaries, weddings and high school reunions, press conferences, and heritage celebrations, concerts, and Town Halls, interesting contests and emotional memorials — you name it. At one point it started snowing on the stage because, really, why not?

By the time the cake and the singing was over, it felt like we’d crashed a wedding, a bar mitzvah, a sweet sixteen, and a bridal shower. We didn’t know any of these people. We were eating and drinking as a thin, sheer curtain was pulled across the dance floor. They soon partnered with four men, all in equally elaborate getups. There was hand-holding and skipping in circles in addition to more advanced choreography. The dancers disappeared as soon as they arrived and the stage dimmed once again.

Next, a hollow metal cube lowered from the ceiling, and two dancers in skin-tight leotards came out alongside the Beyoncé clone from earlier. She launched into a beautiful, melodic song as the cube began to spin and the dancers wound themselves around its metal beams. The remainder of the acts were all equally high-energy and bizarre, from what can only be described as a Thai-infused Jewish wedding scene to an all-out Western, with male dancers slashing bedazzled whips at one another. And then, like the flip of a switch, it was over.

Everyone in the room sat with mouths agape, scrambling to applaud as the waiters continued clearing plates and bringing out new ones, as if we hadn’t already consumed two full meals worth of food. Some patrons took to the dance floor while others continued eating, and I took this lull in the night’s events to look around. We weren’t as out of place as I had expected us to be, and while I heard snippets of Russian conversation jumping around, there didn’t seem to be a shortage of English either. When I moved to New York I came hungry for something new, something I couldn’t find anywhere else. In a brief conversation over by the bachelorette table, packed with girls in mini-dresses and necklaces strung with plastic male genitalia, I asked if the bride-to-be was Russian. One of the girls looked up at me, confused. I did managed to speak with several Eastern European patrons, though, from Russia to Ukraine.

For them, a primary pull towards Tatiana is the element of nostalgia, in both the cuisine and the entertainment. It’s a connection to home separate from the current conflicts, a time to dance and celebrate and come together. Being there as an American felt like an invitation to another world, just a subway ride from my backyard. Our dessert arrived and the music had picked up, with the original four entertainers belting out a range of current hits to a crowded dance floor.