Mark Hawkins

Ok, so here’s the rundown of what happened for those of you who are interested… read on….

The day started early, given that I had to make a 10:55 flight out of the much troubled new home of British Airways, Heathrow terminal 5 which is 2 hours drive from home for me. I was expecting the worst, packing all my stuff so that I only had carry on baggage, cutting out any risk of my records going missing but was pleasantly suprised to have a quick transit through the new terminal building, that seems to be a big improvement on the Heathrow terminals of old (Crowded, dirty, low ceilings etc). The flight was uneventfull, an OKish breakfast for food, Orange juice that tasted like the container it was in… nice…

Pulkovo 2 international terminal in St Petersburg was pretty straightforward, and far less intimidating than my arrival in Rostov Na Donu was in 2006, and as I was only carrying hand luggage, was straight through customs.. My hosts for the weekend, Oleg and Olga were ready and waiting for me, we jumped in the car and headed straight into town to check in at the hotel before having a bit of a trip around the city.

 My Hotel was called “Eurasia”, a simple place with a small room, quite adequate for my needs, clean and tidy with cable TV…

The wallpaper was a bit crazy for the morning after though, definitely looked interesting with a bit of a vodka hangover!!!

we had a bit of a walk around the fortress in the city:

and some pictures taken with my hosts Oleg (AKA DJ Slon)

and Olga… 

as we walked around the fortress I saw a few curious sights - An attractive, 30 something girl, dressed to kill (like they so often are in Russia), drinking a can of cheap beer through a straw whilst teetering on the verge of falling over on her ridiculously high heels… Old women who had set up shop on park benches offering many different kinds of home made souvenirs, kids toys, home made food and many other kinds of merchandise… it seemed that, with the sun out for the first time in months everyone had come out in their best clothes to take a stroll! Made for some entertaining viewing for a visitor like myself.. 
We then went to get haircuts.. it’s a habit of mine to get a haircut in some places where I go as often I don’t have time to do it when I’m back home, I’ve previously had haircuts in Germany, Poland and Ukraine.. time to add Russia to the list! This proved to be pretty interesting given that my hairdresser for today didn’t speak a word of English, and Olga hadn’t dealt with haircuts in English so much before!! it came out ok though, always feels good to go out of an evening with a fresh cut

So, with myself and Olga, fresh out of the salon with our new barnets, we went out in search of one of Russia’s more recent traditions :- Sushi!

Sushi has become very popular amongst upwardly mobile new Russians, I hadn’t had the chance to check it out before, but I assure you, despite the thought of raw fish being pretty wierd to the uninitiated, it was delicious

We then returned to the home of Olga and Oleg, in one of St Petersburg’s suburbs.. Driving out of town we passed many new shopping malls being built and a brand new Porsche dealer (!!) Seems that the economy is starting to boom in the east and the multinationals are queuing up to be the first to procure the new Russian money..

I noticed the road that we were travelling on was pretty good by any country’s standards, particuarly so compared to most of the streets in St. Petersburg, when I asked Olga about this, she replied “ah, yes, this is the road that government officials use to get to their country house”.. I guess the trickle down effect works if you live, like Olga and Oleg, just off this brand new road..

as we drove out of town, the crumbling soviet apartment blocks and industrial landscape gave way to forest, containing many houses, some brand new with expensive german cars parked outside, some more tumble down wooden houses that had obviously seen better days, with every kind of variety inbetween..

we drank a beer and I was obliged to sign many copies of records I made which Oleg’s friends had left with him, thirsty work! He then presented me with a copy of a book he had compiled which catalogues the history of the Russian electronic music scene since 1990:

an amazing discovery for me, the fact that there was a scene that few in the west were aware of which had been happening for over a decade. suprisingly to me, included amongst the rave flyers and party pictures, there were some images of the records that were being played throughout the years at these events, which included UR’s Seawolf, X-101 and Cristian Vogel’s first Sativae release!! Amazing!! Unfortunately for me, the whole book is in Russian. It would be great if the book could be translated into English and published in the english speaking world, although I fear that there wouldn’t be enough interest to warrant the time and energy it would take to complete such a project..

A beer later, and I’m being picked up to be driven back into town to grab a shower in my hotel room by some friends of Oleg’s, two brothers aparently hailing from Murmansk, up in the artic circle.. After a quick shower and a quick look at some Russian cable TV (Including Adult swim’s “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” dubbed into Russian!!!) my ride was there to take me to the club..

On arrival I was met with the sight of a big queue outside the club, which was definitely a good sign.. there had been some anticipation of my arrival as we had been trying to work out this gig for the past 4 or 5 years! once inside I was settled into a comfortable VIP area behind the bar area..

Here I met up with Zina and Krankiss, two St. Petersburg DJs whom I met in Minsk last year:

I also met this enthusiastic chap, who took a lot of the photos I’m posting here:

The club was cool, like a cellar, dark and underground (thus the name) with a good soundsystem.

They were pretty openminded musically, which was a refreshing change to the normal “harder faster” crap you get in many places. of course, I played a few of the classics:

me & oleg:

I played for a couple of hours and then did a bit of back to back with Oleg before he started his set.. we also enjoyed a few shots of Vodka:

I really didn’t want to leave the club, it was a great atmosphere, great people and great music, but by 5am Oleg was attempting to drag me out of the club and home to bed, so I would get enough sleep before my flight home.. as luck would have it, our timing was perfect, just 5 minutes after we left the Millitsiya (Russian Police) showed up to shut the party down!

I woke up to the garish wallpaper of my hotel room with an hour to spare before I was getting picked up, time for a shower & shave, get cleaned up. Oleg picked me up and we went for breakfast having woken far too late for the hotel breakfast. I actually ate a grilled steak (unusual breakfast, but hey, I wasn’t being fussy at this stage of the trip) we drank coffee and then left for my departure from Pulkovo 2..

Pictured above is departures at Pulkovo 2, and it was by no means the scene of peace and tranquility as it was in this picture. Due to the fact that it was the day after Russian orthodox Easter, everyone was trying to get out of town, so we were greeted by a scene of long queues to get to the check in desks..

Airports in Russia and other Former Soviet Union countries operate a little differently to airports in western europe and other parts of the world in that they have the security check and customs situated before you get anywhere near a check in desk.. E-tix are only just appearing there, so even if you have an electronic ticket, you must print out your reservation code, itinery and eticket number or you will not make it past the initial ticket check..

as you can see from the picture, there isn’t exactly heaps of space, so with about 10 flights due to depart all within 2 hours of each other, it got pretty packed.. there were a few different mentalities of dealing with this..

there was the british way of standing in what they thought was a queue and then wondering why they wern’t making any progress, quietly grumbling amongst themselves and complaining, but not wanting to make too much of a fuss.. contrary to popular belief in Britain, it actually takes quite a lot to make the British kick off about something, they’re usually content to grumble amongst themselves until things get really bad..

proved by the fact the Germans were already making loud complaints to the airport staff that their system was terrible, everything was disorganised, and it was little wonder that the place was a mess considering they hadn’t given their airport design much thought as to how to deal with the vast amounts of people they were having to deal with that day..

 the russians, with typical putinesque pragmatism were just pushing their way through every which way they could, with no regard for manners, or any kind of civilised behaviour like that.. elbows out, push push push was the order of the day..

I took Oleg’s lead as we blatently pushed in at the front of the queue as if we had every right to do so, and just didn’t budge if anyone tried to get in front.. i.e. we did it the russian way, which, to be fair, is the only way to go in a russian airport..

we waited and waited, made slow progress forward, during which time more and more people were entering the departures building, which had turned the 4 or so “queues” into a sheer sea of people akin to a crowd at a stadium rock concert. People were pushing from behind, and the staff checking people’s tickets could only hold people back for so long, and so people were almost falling into the x-ray machines..

in the middle of this, I had bid my farewells to Oleg and Olga, and Oleg had presented me with a bottle of Armenian Cognac..  

every so often they would try and shut the doors letting people into the security area, which would then cause people to start shouting.. we had a near riot situation on our hands..

2 russian women had both been pushing me from behind for a good 10 minutes when one of them tried to elbow their way past me.. I wasn’t having it, i stuck my own elbow out to stop her and put my right leg forwards so there was no way she could get past..

she started shouting at me in english how she’d been waiting there for 40 minutes, to which I just acted as if she was invisible.. I have learned over the years that rising to these people is exactly what they want, they want a confrontation. if you just act like they are invisible there is nothing they can do, it’s the ultimate put down. in the struggle we had inadvertantly ended up entering the security area, despite the fact the woman in question was trying to complain to the Millitsiya, airport staff and anyone else who would listen that I had pushed in front of her!! the cheek!! thankfully, they knew my ignoring trick too, and I got through security and customs ok..

on to the check in desk, where, if you remember, I was only carrying hand luggage.. given the liquids ban currently in force, what would I do with the bottle of armenian cognac? Check it in of course! except the manager at BA Check in wasn’t exactly happy with the idea of a bottle of armenian cognac flying around his aircraft’s hold!! so, rather than give the guy a hard time, I thought we’ve all had a long day here, i said ”have a drink on me mate”.. it took about 4 attempts to give the guy the bottle of cognac, I guess he couldn’t believe it at first, but he took it in the end..

I mean, what else was I supposed to do with it at this stage? Immigration was a breeze, and after an hour or so’s wait I was on my way back to blighty….

you can see all of the pictures from the party here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26060083@N07/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80991715@N00/sets/72157604821463550/

http://www.microgenetic.ru/2008/05/02/26-aprelja-underground-club-mark.html

mixes, video and more pictures to follow soon……

  also check

http://www.ue-lab.ru - Underground Experience (the party organisers) http://osravers.com  - Russian electronic music forum..

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