Russian Club Life
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Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 24 Issue 1 Russian Culture of the 1990s Article 8 1-1-2000 Russian Club Life Nadezhda Azhgikhina Nezavisimaia gazeta Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the Slavic Languages and Societies Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Azhgikhina, Nadezhda (2000) "Russian Club Life," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 24: Iss. 1, Article 8. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1479 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Russian Club Life Abstract While the 1990s in Russia witnessed a marked decrease in the officially sponsored clubs that organized Soviet citizens' leisure hours along ideologically approved collective lines, they also ushered in a host of new, diverse clubs closer to Western models. The broad range encompassed political, business, professional, and sports clubs, as well as health clubs, the night clubs that received bemused coverage by the Western press, and the clubs created primarily by and for the New Russians. Among the last, the exclusive English Club, which ruled as Moscow's premier club, combined stylish relaxation amidst lavish surroundings with a more covert agenda: the establishment of useful business and political contacts. With the formation of a stable oligarchy as its goal, the club reflected the decade's penchant for self- legitimation through a revival of elitist tsarist traditions. Keywords clubs, club life, Russian clubs, Western clubs, political clubs, business clubs, professional clubs, sports clubs, health clubs, New Russians, English Club, tsarist tradition This article is available in Studies in 20th Century Literature: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol24/iss1/8 Azhgikhina: Russian Club Life Russian Club Life Nadezhda Azhgikhina Nezavisimaia gazeta Pre-Perestroika Clubs During the late 1960s, in the Moscow suburb of Kupavna, a group of teenagers decided to establish their own informal club. Being enthusiasts of badminton, they built a court on a grassy lot between two buildings on Lenin Street, learned the rules of the game, arranged competitions, practiced all summer, and proclaimed them- selves the Kupavna Badminton Club. At the time the name sounded somewhat anomalous, and Kupavna's regular residents and seasonal dacha-owners reacted to the club's activities with cautious bewil- derment: the club building disgorged the blare of music and films, was frequently sealed with a large warehouse lock, and served as a meeting place for hoodlums. The Badminton Club never registered with the authorities, but its founding members and those who sub- sequently joined reverently honored the club's history, chronicling the recollected events of a common existence. They invented their own folklore and mythology, adopted secret names for all mem- bers, hatched plots, and engaged in activities typical for any closed, secret society without definite political aims. The authorities turned a blind eye to the organization, reacting indifferently to what in Soviet times carried potential political im- plications: a collection of seeming jocks preoccupied not with the "native" game of skittles or even the volleyball beloved by Soviet citizens, but an alien, elegant sport incomprehensible to the nov- ice-onlooker. Since the club's occupation of the grassy plot pre- vented its use as both pasture for the locals' cows and venue for the relaxation and cultural pursuits of the vacationing dacha-owners, an indignant minority made an effort to liquidate the courts. A group of homeowners on Lenin Street thwarted those attempts, for none Published by New Prairie Press 1 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 24, Iss. 1 [2000], Art. 8 170 STCL, Volume 24, No.1 (Winter, 2000) of the players had ever been seen drunk or disorderly, and the local roughs treated them with respect, secretly learning how to play bad- minton themselves. Why was this organization a club? Why not a team or a group? The importance lies, of course, partly in the word itself, haloed in the mystique of semi-legality and enticing exotica, as wonderful and remote as the prestigious English Club of Pushkin's era or the British lords' clubs and millionaires' golf clubs known only through books. Equally important was the club's role as an alternative to existing official peer groups, such as Young Pioneer camps, the Communist Youth league, and so forth. The club's philosophy and motto, "freedom of lifestyle," confirmed its oppositional or inde- pendent orientation. As in many youth organizations, sports determined the club's modus vivendi: all members happily raced their bicycles around the surrounding areas, hiked, cycled to the local lake for nocturnal swims, and played soccer and various athletic games. Additional club activities included celebratory marches along the village streets, which were fancifully divided among the club's members as duch- ies, princedoms, and kingdoms; parties with music; and intermi- nable discussions on any porch where members happened to meet- usually, that of club president Andrey Krasil'nikov, whose club alias was Prince Metel' skii. Adults often participated in these ex- changes, which led to arguments about every conceivable topic: politics, aspects of the country's past not described in conventional textbooks, chess championships, the meaning of Christianity, and the latest French detective novel.' Democracy ruled these debates; its participants were not predictably confined to the offspring of the Moscow intelligentsia, for sons and daughters of locksmiths, of officers in the Soviet army, and of grocery store clerks also argued and drank tea with the locals during these summer marathons. (See Fig. IVA.) In 1997, the thirtieth anniversary of the Kupavna Badminton Club was celebrated on the very same Lenin Street. Today, the people who previously formed the club's backbone are scientists, government officials, teachers, construction workers, a subway driver and a playwright, a housewife, and one of the unemployed. In Kupvana, these distinctions are irrelevant, for of the many clubs now popular in the Russian capital, the Badminton Club is prob- ably the most democratic, retaining its original openness to diverse https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol24/iss1/8social backgrounds, various philosophical allegiances, to old friends DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1479 2 Azhgikhina: Russian Club Life Fig. VI. 1. The Kupavna Badminton Club in the days of yore. Published by New Prairie Press 3 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 24, Iss. 1 [2000], Art. 8 172 STCL, Volume 24, No.1 (Winter, 2000) and neophytes alike. As before, the club has its folklore, music making, and discussions over tea, often around a bonfire. The mem- bership fee is equal to that of a high-quality badminton set, but when the shuttlecocks fly, today's players are the children of the old members. The Kupavna Badminton Club, one of the oldest organizations of its type and unregistered to this day, had no concrete, practical goal other than to make people's lives more meaningful and com- fortable. During the period of Stagnation, that modest but idealistic goal informed many of the era's clubs. The Moscow State Univer- sity Department of Journalism at the end of the 1970s saw the for- mation of A Comfortable Evening, a club named after a poem by Theophile Gautier, essentially linked by nothing more than an en- thusiasm for pleasurable pastimes: listening to old music, drinking cheap French cognacs and wines, eating delicacies by candlelight among a select group of gourmets. The club's agenda included read- ings of Silver Age authors, with long dresses obligatory for women and bow ties for men. Such gatherings were prompted not so much by a search for the lost Atlantis of Russian culture or an escape into the past,' but a yearning for an alternative to the stifling official culture of the Brezhnev era. And that apolitical goal rendered such organizations potentially subversive. (The intoxicating days of perestroika witnessed the birth of many analogous clubs, but with more clearly defined profiles and amidst lengthy soul-searching within youth culture.) Late stagnation also boasted myriad special-interest clubs, sometimes called "societies" or "schools," but more often labeled "clubs" on account of the magic associations the term held for the intelligentsia. Bibliophile clubs proliferated throughout the coun- try in the 1970s, their ties with the state publishing organization, Soiuzpechat', enabling members to sign up for out-of-stock publi- cations or limited-access literature. Amateur flower growers gath- ered so as to fashion bouquets, distribute seedlings that were in short supply, cultivate room-size plots, and aid their owners in maintaining them. Dog breeders' clubs proved extraordinarily popu- lar with animal lovers, assisting with cures, grooming, and caretak- ing; arranging shows; distributing puppies of rare breeds; and help- ing to mate young dogs. With the 1980s, clubs for lovers of cats, birds, and other animals became the rage. Numerous World War II veterans' clubs likewise existed, had https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol24/iss1/8connections with local Party organizations, and usually convened DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1479 4 Azhgikhina: Russian Club Life Azhgikhina 173 in the homes of apartment building managers. These clubs had an active agenda, making presentations in school and in front of apart- ment buildings, hanging posters and flags for holidays, agitating for volunteers to clean the courtyards of buildings on Saturdays, and so on. Clubs also existed in schools (though usually they were called "groups"), including international friendship clubs, which prepared information sessions about East Bloc countries, made posters with articles and cutouts from illustrated magazines, and corresponded with young people from Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Ger- man Democratic Republic.