Hoping for Bar Hopping Again: Portraits of Moscow Bar Owners
A photography project by Maria Slepkova.
All small businesses are having a hard time during this unprecedented crisis — and the trouble is not just financial. With everything closed and everyone locked down, bars have lost their main function — they have stopped being places for people to get together, centers of the city’s real and meaningful social life. And no one knows what’s next.
We photographed owners in their bars, which are all closed during the pandemic, so that later we can remember them this way. We also wanted to stop time for a second to remind Muscovites that their favorite hangouts are still alive.
All small businesses are having a hard time during this unprecedented crisis — and the trouble is not just financial. With everything closed and everyone locked down, bars have lost their main function — they have stopped being places for people to get together, centers of the city’s real and meaningful social life. And no one knows what’s next.
We photographed owners in their bars, which are all closed during the pandemic, so that later we can remember them this way. We also wanted to stop time for a second to remind Muscovites that their favorite hangouts are still alive.
Vse tvoi druzya
Artyom Popov and Alexander Maleyev, co-owners of the bar Vse tvoi druzya (“all your friends” — from the joke “all your friends are jerks and you’re the biggest jerk of all”) on Maly Gneznikovsky Pereulok. They’re still able to have some fun: “Stand all night, sleep all day” — from one of the quotes on the wall of the bar.
Maria Slepkova
Sosna and Lipa Craft Beer Boutique
Sanchir Badakov and Andrei Lipa (“linden”), the owners of Sosna and Lipa (Pine and Linden), a bar serving craft beer, do online beer tastings of store-bought brew to decide which ones are drinkable while their craft beer bar is closed. They don’t have money to pay the rent. To keep from going under, they are selling certificates for use when the bar opens.
Maria Slepkova
Zinziver
While the bar is closed, Dmitry Itskovich, the owner of Zinziver, has been putting on a series of Zoom poetry evenings with poets Lev Rubinshtein, Vsevolod Yemelin, Slava Shvetz and others. They recite their verse while enjoying some infused vodka and the bar’s signature herring sandwiches. The bar’s name and the name of the evenings (“Tararakhnul”) are both from the poem “The Grasshopper” by avant-garde poet Velimir Khlebnikov.
Maria Slepkova
Papa Blues Bar
Alexander Buzmakov and Mikhail Mishuris, co-owners of the juke joint Papa Blues on Starovagankovsky Pereulok. They opened just three months before all the bars were shuttered. Mikhail misses performing. At home his powerful New Orleans style singing bothers the neighbors, but here it doesn’t keep anyone up.
Maria Slepkova
Kooperativ Chyorny
Artyom Temirov, co-owner of the Kooperative Chyorny (Black Coop) coffee shop on Lyalin Pereulok. During the lock-down the Coop has bounced so high off bottom that they got another business up and running: an online shop selling home-roasted coffee by subscription. When the crisis ends, they’re going to work to include coffee in the list of “essential goods and services.”
Maria Slepkova
Shikokuyu na shirokuyu
Alexander Maleyev is the owner of a bar serving Serbian street-food on Krivokolenny Pereulok called Shirokuyu na shirokuyu (“wide on wide” from an internet meme of a drunk telling construction workers how to lay bricks). For the first 14 days of the city quarantine, he earned the equivalent of “an okay Saturday” doing take-out. Now it’s dwindling down to nothing. “Is that success? Damned if I know. What’s next? Damned if I know.”
Maria Slepkova
The Rusty Pub
Dmitry Slatin, co-owner of the Rusty Pub at the Flacon Design Factory. A year ago he gave up a successful career in an IT company to realize his dream — to open a bar with foosball and a cozy atmosphere where you can play whenever you want. Now you can’t play foosball anywhere in Moscow, even if you have your own bar.
Maria Slepkova
Sentyabr
Arlen Kabushev, Sasha Semyonov and Mitya Yerokhin, co-owners of the wine bar Sentyabr (“September”) on Ulitsa Pokrovka. They aren’t letting this get them down. They are thrilled to be able to bike to work in record time and are considering how to fit space for happenings, art squats and a reading hall in their 120-square-meter cellar.
Maria Slepkova
Format Bar
Vitaly Kozlov, general manager of the Format bar on Ulitsa Pokrovka. He lives five minutes from the bar and sometimes stops in for a glass of wine, to work at his computer, and feed the songbird, Zheltok (Yolk).
Maria Slepkova
Rainbow Pub
Owner Denis Koropov and bartender Erika Osol at the Rainbow Pub in the Sokolniki neighborhood. They came out for the first time in a long time to be photographed. They really miss each other and human contact. Soon the bill for the beer they ordered last month is going to come due. They don’t have the money to pay for it. But they aren’t the only ones who aren’t paying for beer deliveries this month.
Maria Slepkova
Powerhouse
Co-owner of the Powerhouse bar and studio Andrei Algorythmik is sticking out these hard times in an old manor house on Goncharnaya Ulitsa. He only leaves to do a live show on New New World radio, playing music every day from noon to 2 p.m. Powerhouse is still the place for musicians. They don’t use their travel passes to go to the store or see a doctor. They use their passes to come to studio and record.
Maria Slepkova
Cat chasing a ping-pong ball at Powerhouse.
Maria Slepkova
