Sleepless in the City

Never again." This is the solemn vow hundreds of Moscow-dwellers make every Sunday morning as they wake up to thumping heads, fussy memories
and empty wallets.

Vice is nice in Moscow, and the city has become infamous for the indulgences and excesses it extends to its wealthier inhabitants. Even if you are not living in a penthouse with a gold-plated microwave and a black-tinted Escalade, if you're not sleeping on the streets, chances are you've walked them in search of one of the all-night bars, the all-day strip clubs, or the all-over casinos, of which Moscow boasts in greater variety than the rest of Europe taken together.

Is there an alternative? What if, as night falls, we choose virtue? It takes guts to stare midnight down the barrel without a slug of vodka in the offing. The Moscow News stepped up, sober and not a little suspicious, to explore Saturday night in Moscow, on the wagon.

Big Spender

A supermarket expedition during the day can be a gut punch of clamor and queuing. Stores such as Sedmoi Kontinent and Fortuna, on the other hand, are open around the clock. At night, the aisles and tills are largely free of trolley bandits and elbowing crowds. You may even discover that staying up late improves your purchasing power - some stores offer discounts to entice late-night shoppers.

And once your fridge is full, why stop there? Without the booze bill, you almost certainly deserve to upgrade your hi-fi, buy a new flat-screen TV and kit out your car with the latest satnav system. All are available 24/7 at M.Video on Sadovaya-Spasskaya Street.

If you're willing to push out the boat and really self-improve while others sup with Satan, visit the book store BookBerry on Nikitsky boulevard. You can browse through a wide selection of art books, reference books, music and, if you're especially enamoured with the spirit of humanity, gifts (for other people). Pick up a novel from their English-language selection in the basement and then curl up and enjoy with a creamy hot chocolate in the 24-hour Shokoladnitsa, which is annexed to the shop. While others master too many Margheritas and end up reading the gutter, brush up on a bit of Bulgakov and feel most smug. At Respublika on Tverskaya-Yamskaya, you don't even have to leave to delve into your new purchase - just crash on one of the couches dotted about the shop.

Adrenalin Junkie

If you're looking for speed, wicked breaks or a good pair of pins, clubs and lapdances aren't your only option. Samolet at 14 Presnensky Val near metro 1905 goda offers go-carting, bowling and billiards, all night till 6am. However, like Jesus in the desert, Lucifer has seen fit to distract visitors to the centre with a casino and an exotic show. But, quite frankly, if the chance to drive like Hamilton, pot like Dott or bowl like Bill Murray form Kingpin doesn't keep you from temptation, nothing will.

Another good all-night bowling and billiards hall is Bow-ball on 3rd Yamskovo Polya street, near metro Belorusskaya. Again, do try to avoid the glitzy lights of the casino Golden Palace. It's just a stone's throw away...

...and Relax



If all this seems a bit too much like more hassle after a hard working week, really, truly revitalize your mind and body with an evening of relaxation and pampering. Start by putting the glow back into your cheeks with a tanning session at one of the 24 hour Sun City beauty salons. Then, whilst early evening drinkers stumble into traffic all about you, glide swiftly on to the Planet Fitness health center on Bolshoi Kislovsky pereulok. Ignore the four floors of exercise equipment and head straight to the pool for a solitary midnight swim to gently stimulate the muscles. Follow with a Turkish sauna. Pull your sunblasted, exercise-toned, steam-calmed limbs from the hot rooms and retire to a taxi and bed, and sleep the dreams of the blessed.

Another excellent option is to hire a Russian banya, complete with cold and warm plunge pools. At Planet Fitness you can rent one till 3am. Thick bunches of birch twigs are provided to whip all over the body. It's a Russian tradition based on a belief that such self-flagellation improves skin condition and circulation. Quite possibly.

Afterwards, get rid of that just-dragged-backwards-through-a-big-hedge look with a visit to Moi Parizh on Nikitsky Bulvar, which offers haircuts and facials around the clock. You can also perk yourself up with a variety of light refreshments.

Top Nosh

If you require something a little more substantial to sate your appetite after all that preening you have the pick of a whole raft of 24-hour eateries. Avoid the whole sushi? burger? sushi? burger? conundrum by heading to one of the Etage restaurants. One is one conveniently located just outside metro Pushkinskaya on Tverskaya Street, where the comprehensive selection of cuisines allows you to feast on an Etage mega-burger with a spicy sushi side dish, or choose from variety of other European and Asian cuisines. But be warned, Etage is a popular destination even late into the night so be ready with a backup plan in case your face fails to impress the door control.

A perfect option for a detox-weekend is the central Asian/Arabic cafe Sherbet on Petrovka. Relax on comfy cushioned seats in opulent surroundings, let the sounds of the east wash over you and pick anything from the restaurant's superb selection of salads, soups, vegetable and meat dishes; it is all good. Finish off your midnight feast with spicy tea (the deserts are the one thing on the menu I would not recommend) and a calming rose scented hookah pipe.

Mental Health

Now that you have been fed and watered lets move up a stage on the hierarchy needs and focus on your intellectual development with a midnight trip to the cramped but charismatic Bulgarkov museum at 10 Bolshaya Sadovaya. The museum is housed in the apartment where Bulgakov lived from 1921 to 1924 and the curators have gone to great trouble to pack the limited space available with all things Bulgakov, there are even displays in the toilets.

Master and Margarita walking tours begin at 1 am and finish when the metros open around 6 am. You may think that five-hour literary tours in the middle of the night are aiming at a rather niche market, but each week the tours attracts around 50 Bulgakov enthusiasts. These book-fiends happily traipse across the whole of Moscow, from patriarch ponds to sparrow hills, in their quest for literary enlightenment, and that is surely something more positive to wakeup with on a Sunday morning than fussy memories and a head full of vodka.

So Moscow may be a sinner's paradise, but it has a wholesome underbelly. If you can see straight, head past the neon and the narcotics and head down the back alleys and off the map. There's a plethora of options waiting there, guaranteed to leave you capable of speech and movement the next morning. This reporter made it through, and felt cleansed as a result. Well, almost. It takes a lot to separate a girl from her hipflask. One step at a time and all that.