New Statesman: Into the night

Young Muscovites revel in living in a real metropolis at last. Today, you can drink until dawn -- and even the bookshops are swinging until midnight.

Moscow has now become a 24-hour city. Living by night there is as easy as living by day and it's a lifestyle that's all too easy to get used to. What a thump back to reality; then, to arrive in London after a summer in Russia -- and find it impossible to get a decent meal or see a movie after 10pm. Past the witching hour, Muscovian night-time habits need to be well and truly forgotten here.

In Moscow, going to the cinema at any time is no problem at all. To see a movie at 4am is perfectly normal. Although darkness falls early in the winter, heading into the city before 10pm is, for Muscovites, strictly a teenager thing. This late-night culture is simply part of the yuppie lifestyle of the growing middle class, desperate to have it all, all of the time.

"We have done so much to get where we are now, and we need some compensation for our years of hard study and work," says 24-year-old Ilya, a lawyer who arrived in Moscow from Siberia several years ago. Having climbed the career ladder to a top position at an independent law firm, he is now one of the self-made professionals who "work hard and play hard". Polls say that the average middle-class Russian works nine to ten hours a day, or longer for those under 30 who feel less secure about their jobs and financial stability.

After long hours at the office, young professionals stream into Moscow's downtown, now packed with cafes, sushi bars, restaurants, multiplex cinemas, bowling alleys and nightclubs. These popular haunts are packed every evening, and even at 11pm on a Monday night, you'll be hard pushed to get a table for dinner at the exquisite Cafe Pushkin. Such a wide variety of late-night venues is a recent phenomenon in Moscow. Just ten years ago, entertainment in the Russian capital was limited to very expensive restaurants and clubs for the nouveaux riches. But, gradually, things started to change. In 1996, Moscow experienced a real nightclub boom, followed by a wave of sushi bars and high-quality coffee shops. In 2000, at least one cafe opened in the city every week.

Restaurants now offer different cuisines in price ranges from Russkie Bliny's caviar pancakes at [pounds sterling]1.20 to Russo-Italian fusion at Moskva-Rim starting at [pounds sterling]15 a head. Dinner is followed by a cappuccino at one of the numerous coffee house chains (such as Shokoladnitsa, Cafe-In and Cafe-Tun) or by a cocktail at a trendy bar. After that come going to the movies, bowling, gambling in casinos or clubbing. Moscow's dance clubs pump out music of the same high calibre as you will hear in London. Often, clubs such as Propaganda (a favourite among foreigners), Ministerstvo, Shangri-La or 13 fly in DJs from London to spin the tunes the music capital of the world has to offer. The hour long queues, even on a wintry night, are proof that it pays off. But there is more to Moscow by night than eating, drinking and being merry. If you can do it by day, you can usually do it by night. The trendiest shops on Tverskaya Street, as well as the GUM, the Manege and the Atrium centres, are all open unti l 10pm. Some boutiques keep their doors open until midnight.

Bookstores, too, have reacted to the changing lifestyle of Muscovites. Literature and high-quality fiction are back in style. Moskva Bookstore on Tverskaya Square is now open until lam and the nearby OCT bookstore, part of the Pirogi eatery, is open round the clock. Amazingly, these places are packed with book enthusiasts, even at midnight.

Add supermarkets and food stores to the list, most of which are open and sell alcohol all night, and you can see that Moscow never sleeps. Nor, it seems, do the young Muscovites who manage to fit it all in.

"It's true, we do sleep less these days," says Max, a 27-year old banker. "After decades of no nightlife during the Soviet era, we are finally a real metropolis, a real big smoke. Our generation is lucky--we have it all and we don't want to miss out."

Moscow certainly has it all -- and it's definitely worth a try.

Alex Kokcharov is Expert's London correspondent. He is writing a PhD on the transformation of Russia's oil industry