I am in town to inspect the possibilities of hosting one of my Club JET balls here in the Capital of the world’s greatest country. However the historical impregnability of this city does frighten me somewhat as do the minus 20 degrees Celsius outside. Napoleon and Hitler did suffer loss here as I am reminded by the 1812 Overture played in an eased version in the mahogany elevator room.

I am beginning to understand that what I did by giving such balls on the shores of Beirut, the Bosporus Straight and in the Opera house of Stockholm were little achievements in comparison to a wrestle with this bear. I have been here a couple of times before but not within the last ten years or so.

When the city holds this exorbitant nightlife it is of course do to the fact that no other place in the world inhabits such a great number of billionaires whose presence in the nightlife do add something. Everything appears to be possible here given that one is equipped with cash and contacts, which seem to gather in the same hands. Among other places I visit my favourite nightclub Imperia Lounge and by the river Soho Rooms with a very strict door politic. In Moscow they take huge effort to decide who are to be offered entrance and who are to be left out in the cold, which this time of year seems to be more absolute than extreme.

The passage along the river is referred to as The golden Mile with its highly ornamented and romantic buildings hosting some of the worlds most expensive real estate prices. It was here that the former heads of the Communist party resided as well as high-ranking members of the KGB and to a certain degree it still is even though the party-membership is no longer renewed and the KGB is now referred to as the FSB.

The party continues one is tempted to say and many people do also tell me that it is a matter of the same bandits in new suits. Yet there are also new inhabitants to be spotted in these luxury apartments for outside the nightclubs as well as on The golden Mile one often gets the rather great experience to witness beautiful Russian women driving around in Bentleys, Ferraris or the Rolls Royce Phantom that seems to have a certain appeal to the Russian soul. They drive around alone as well as they inhabit their apartments alone but are financed by so-called sponsors. It is custom that well to do business people sponsor young models by installing them in an apartment and giving them a car even though the rent in many regards is equal to what most of Moscow’s population may earn within a lifetime.

The case is not necessarily as dubious as one might suggest. Often the sponsors merely ask only the company of their young beauties and not necessarily in a horizontal manner. They simply ask the privilege of having more than a bartender to whom they can complain that their wife does not understand them, and perhaps the company on journeys as well as in the nightlife. I am explained this by my new lady friend whom I meet in the nightclub Imperia Lounge in a room that is decorated completely with some shinning metallic pearls all over. Over us hang live ballerinas in some sort of silk strings in which they perform a dance in the air. Everybody is dressed fairly traditional and the women are more or less all in long evening dresses. There is not much of an alternative fashionista crowd to be found and I shall have the honesty to admit that I am rather funned of both facts. My female company is also in such a long dress and takes great pride in explaining me that all her clothing as well as shoes and coat are one of a kind in the world. (Needles to say the shoes however are two of a kind).

I later experience that she drives a Lamborghini and lives on a rather immodest address in the so-called Sparrow Hills, one of the historical city centres more poetic neighbourhoods. She is a student of theology, which increases my interest but it has not lead her in any way to live an ascetic life, I trust my own presence in it to be sufficient prove hereof. She speaks of her sponsor with not the slightest sign of secrecy and explains not to have talked to him for several months and little willing to ever know him in a more delicate fashion even though she does express gratitude as well as sympathy for him. She used to drive a Ferrari and liked it better but one has to settle I suppose. Her sponsor works with the FSB as well as in business and she promises to call him and ask that he help me arrange my ball in the city, which he to my rather great surprise agrees to do.

I love Moscow but would never replace such words with a read heart, that is for New York and so last century.