sapphire and steel assignment one

Sapphire and Steel

Assignment One: Part 1

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Sapphire & Steel - Assignment One [TV] (1979) Directed by Shaun O'Riordan

Film review, film synopsis, similar films.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Five [TV] (1981)
Horror Express (1973)
This Island Earth (1955)
Madame Sin (1972)
Kill Baby, Kill (1966)

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Archive Television Musings

"To waste one second of one's life is a betrayal of one's self! I wonder what's on television?"

Sapphire & Steel. Assignment One – Episode One

All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel. Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.

Sapphire & Steel was originally created as a children’s series, something which is most evident in the opening story, as two children, Rob (Steven O’Shea) and Helen (Tamasin Bridge), are the people in need of help from the mysterious “time detectives”.

Production limitations (an incredibly low budget) helped to shape the tone of all S&S ‘s serials. Small casts (with usually only a handful of main speaking roles), a handful of sets (only one of the six serials featured any location filming) and very limited special effects tended to be the order of the day.

The unsettling feel of this opening story is quickly established. The location is a large, comfortable and old-fashioned house. Whilst Rob is downstairs doing his homework, his mother and father are upstairs, reading nursery rhymes to their young daughter Helen.

The snatches of nursery rhymes used as incidental music is an indicator that the rhymes are designed to have a sinister, rather than comforting, air. The feeling of unease can also be seen on Rob’s face downstairs – he doesn’t know why he feels his way, he just does.

The fact that we don’t see the faces of Rob and Helen’s parents is a deliberate move, it helps to make their brief appearance another discordant element. When they vanish – after reading a nursery rhyme – Robert attempts to take charge (phoning for the police) although his constant reassurances to Helen that everything will be all right seems to be as much for his benefit as hers.

Shaun O’Riordan’s direction has a few notable moments, especially a long tracking shot – which moves from Helen, alone and frightened in the kitchen, down the corridor and to the front door.

The events so far have primed us for the arrival of Sapphire (Joanna Lumley) and Steel (David McCallum) and their first appearance is a memorable one. They adopt patterns of behaviour which will become familiar – Steel is brusque and business-like, whilst Sapphire is friendly and amusing.

The mystery of their arrival, as well as the fact that Steel knows Rob’s full name, is never answered – rightly so, since part of the tone of S&S depends on the fact that the title characters are inscrutable and unknowable. But although Steel regards the presence of Rob and Helen as little more than an irritation, Sapphire attempts to explain what’s happened and why they’re here.

There is a corridor and the corridor is time. It surrounds all things and it passes through all things. Oh you can’t see it. Only sometimes, and it’s dangerous. You cannot enter into time, but sometimes … time can try to enter into the present. Break in. Burst through and take things. Take people. The corridor is very strong; it has to be. But sometimes, in some places, it becomes weakened. Like fabric, worn fabric. And when there is pressure put upon the fabric….

Sapphire is rather more playful and frivolous in this episode than she’d later become. She changes dresses and hairstyles in the wink of an eye several times, something which impresses Rob no end (who’s already a little in love with her). But Steel’s on hand to bring the conversation down, telling Rob about the dangers in the house. “There are things – creatures, if you like – from the very beginnings of time, and the very end of time. And these creatures have access to the corridor. They’re forever… moving along it. Searching… looking… trying to find a way in. They’re always searching, always looking …”

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Sapphire and Steel - Assignment Two

Following on straight from " Assignment One ," Sapphire & Steel's second serial is widely considered one of its very best. An outright ghost story, "Assignment Two" ups the atmosphere and the scares. While the first serial reveals its origins as a children's programme, "Assignment Two" is supernatural horror that addresses the folly of war and the injustice of untimely death.

Like the first story, which was enclosed in a single house, this serial is confined to a single location. In this case, it's an abandoned rural train station – an impressively convincing piece of setwork – naturally during the night. It's a spooky enough setting in itself, and co-directors Shaun O'Riordan and David Foster imbue the serial with an oppressive claustrophobia. The two directors would, between the two of them, direct all six serials of the series.

At the station sits George Tully, a very mild-mannered middle-aged man who is an amateur ghost hunter. Played by Gerald James ( The Sound of Laughter, A Traveller in Time, The Crezz ), Tully is a sweet, sympathetic character, and you can't help but feel terribly sorry for him as various unnerving entities converge upon him. After spending months investigating the station, Tully's ghost hunting is suddenly about to become very successful indeed.

Before tonight, the spectral activity at the station had been fairly minor. Flowers appear out of nowhere and vanish again. There's the sound of a man carrying equipment while he whistles. The occasional echo of a voice recorded on his equipment. When Sapphire and Steel arrive, he takes them for fellow ghost hunters – which, in a way, they are. They've arrived because a disturbance in time is becoming more profound. Before the ghosts proper turn up, the two elements are unnerving enough. Sapphire displays remarkable powers during the story – rolling back time, holding it still, communing with forces from beyond and sensing disturbances in time. It's winter at the station, yet she can feel the summer heat and smell the flowers. Steel displays less in the way of power in this story, but is pragmatic to an extreme when it comes to dealing with dangers from the past.

The story unfolds slowly, with the presence Tully has been investigating gradually manifesting and becoming more threatening as it does so. To begin with, it manifests as Sam Pearce – a young WWI soldier, sympathetically played by Tom Kelly. While Sam is the main ghost, he's accompanied over time by others – a trio of submariners, and a WWII pilot (portrayed with character and likeability by David Cann). It's classic ghost story material – the figures are able to communicate with Sapphire, Steel and Tully, but find themselves repeating the last days and moments of their lives. At first, they don't seem to fit together – they're all military personnel, but none died anywhere near the station, and they all come from different times.

Sapphire is sympathetic to the ghosts, but she can feel the presence of something else – a force of darkness that is using the ghosts for its own reasons. Before long, it starts lashing out. The second episode ends with a fantastic cliffhanger, as Steel finds himself reliving the pilot's death – and is only narrowly rescued by Sapphire when she rolls time back to before he was pulled in. Steel's reaction to the ghosts' actions is anger, and he, foolhardily, decides the best way forward is to wind them up. Inspired by Sam's whistling refrain, he and Tully engage in a rousing chorus of "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag," over and over again, in the hope of forcing the ghosts to manifest. Quite how Steel expects to deal with them isn't clear, but he's not quite feeling himself. He's obviously terrified by his experiences and is far more animated than we usually see him. It's a brilliant performance by David McCallum, and it's truly unsettling to see this previously unflappable figure so visibly shaken.

Tully is far more respectful, and is upset at having to follow along with Steel's actions. For his trouble, he is forced to experience the suffocation of the submariners. He remains convinced, as Steel does, that they need to find a way to communicate on their own terms, and suggests a séance. Sapphire, of course, acts as medium. It works, to a point, as Sapphire is possessed by the spirit of a young woman. She insists the darkness isn't using her, as she has no grievance, but she is linked to the station and is able to communicate on behalf of the ghosts. It is revealed that she was Sam's lover, but her involvement angers the soldier. He sets the darkness on them, leaving Sapphire catatonic, with her spirit seemingly separated from her body and now roaming with the ghosts.

It's now clear that the darkness and the ghosts are far more powerful than Sapphire and Steel, upping the tension even higher. There really doesn't seem to be any way to escape the ghosts. The darkness plays with them, seeming to give them opportunities to leave, but then leaving them running into barbed wire on the edge of No Man's Land. Sapphire's spirit speaks with Steel, and it becomes clear that it's just another aspect of the darkness, using her image. It insists that neither the ghosts nor the darkness are a threat – as long as they're left alone. Steel disagrees – the darkness is recruiting the ghosts of those who died not merely unjustly, but pointlessly. Sam died after the armistice was called (eleven minutes after, just to pour salt on the wound); the submariners suffocated due to a design flaw in their craft; and the pilot died on his last flight before being demobbed. The darkness feeds on the collective resentment and fury of those who died when they should have lived.

With the serial reaching its final couple of episodes, it seems the threat has passed. Dawn breaks, and the three living characters are safe. The threat seems to have passed, but the darkness has moved them twelve days into the future. They could leave now and let the darkness carry on with whatever it has planned, but Steel believes it presents a real threat to reality itself. Steel persuades Sapphire to reach out again so that he can negotiate with the darkness – which results in the force possessing her, in perhaps the most terrifying scene in the story. The darkness agrees to take them back to the time it found them, whereupon he strikes a final deal. To free the ghosts and stop the darkness from forever recruiting more, he hands over Tully – due to die in five years time. This way, he says, the darkness will have thwarted time itself, earning its resentment. Sapphire, reluctantly, agrees to go on with it. Tully's final moment, off camera, is unseen... but it ends with a harrowing scream.

"Assignment Two" is a tour de force of understated horror. While it's in many ways a straightforward ghost story, it's full of inventive concepts, not least that of some kind of intelligence that exists beyond time and, seemingly, in opposition to it. For all that, Steel is the most frightening thing in the story, willing to sacrifice the life of an innocent man – with the knowledge of his fated time of death as absolute fact – in order to placate that intelligence. There's even the hint that this was all merely some way of sticking it to the forces of time, and that Steel, for all the fear he displayed during the story, was manipulating the situation to come to a head. Notably, while we see a softer side to Steel, even professing to love Sapphire (although he only admits this to a mirage of her), he is comfortably able to put her in danger and force her into submitting herself to the darkness.

It's a particularly stagey affair, as is the series as a whole, but this is never detrimental. The most effective scenes, such as Steel's near-death flight or the trip to the edge of No Man's Land, are realised with minor prop work and some creative lighting and sound effects. It's a testament to a simpler, cannier kind of filmmaking, when the less was more. Nothing here is graphic or outlandish, and it's all the more effective for it.

At eight episodes, though, this is by far the longest serial in the series, and it does sag a little in the middle. While some of the episodes end on nail-biting cliffhangers, others just sort of stop – twenty-five minutes is up, time for something else. On its broadcast in 1979, this serial fell foul of the electricians' strike which outed ITV for three weeks (the very same that led to the Doctor Who serial City of Death experience such enormous ratings on the other side). As such, there was a huge gap halfway through, after which the serial was restarted from the beginning. It must have seemed to go on forever... Watched now, able to view it all together, it holds together remarkably well even with its extended length. The story of a good man caught among implacable, alien forces – and that's just the alleged heroes – this is genre television at its very best.

Review: Daniel Tessier

Dan describes himself as a geek. Skinny white guy. Older than he looks. Younger than he feels. Reads, watches, plays and writes. Has been compared to the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth Doctors, and the Dream Lord. Plus Dr. Smith from 'Lost in Space.' He has also had a short story published in Master Pieces: Misadventures in Space and Time a charity anthology about the renegade Time Lord.

Dan's web page can be here: Immaterial

Published on December 10th, 2020. Written by Daniel Tessier for Television Heaven.

Dumb Martian

Earthman Duncan Weaver on a solo tour of duty on one of Jupiter's moons buys a Martian woman as a companion. He mistreats her, assuming her to be just a "dumb Martian." He learns, to his cost, that she has more intelligence than he gives her credit for.

Also tagged British Scifi

Sapphire and Steel - Assignment Three

The time agents receive a puzzling assignment at an apartment block where time is poised to attack. The occupants look like two normal 1980s residents...but they are not all they seem.

Also tagged British Science Fiction Series

Sapphire and Steel - Assignment One

All the clocks have stopped. Rob and Helen's parents have vanished. Two mysterious strangers arrive unannounced and tell the children they are their only hope of escaping from the ghosts that have invaded their isolated country house. And then there's that nursery rhyme...

The Caves of Steel

Lost BBC production of an Isaac Asimov tale concerning an investigation which follows the murder of a robot specialist

Sapphire and Steel - Assignment Five

As events unfold in 1980 Time itself is trying to change history. Sapphire and Steel must play out a scenario that happened fifty years before - to avoid the destruction of the entire human race.

Pathfinders To Mars and Beyond

Daniel Tessier continues his review of the 'Pathfinders' series.

The Tomorrow People

With the ability to read minds, levitate objects, and teleport themselves, the Tomorrow People are the next stage in human evolution.

A group of scientists and doctors try to solve real world problems whilst dealing with issues of their own in this typical 1960's BBC drama series.

The Monsters

Four-part science fiction series that failed to make an impact with either viewers or critics, and was never repeated before being 'junked' less than a year after transmission

Cult TV Blog

Sapphire and Steel: Assignment 6 Part 1

This post (or series of posts if I actually complete the assignment) is intended to be pure pleasure. I see I first blogged about Sapphire and Steel in 2014, which rather surprises me, and this is the only assignment I haven't even touched yet. I have been keeping it back because it is my favourite but there isn't really much point in not blogging about things just because I like them, is there? One of the reasons it's my favourite is that I remember watching this with my dad when it was first broadcast and being very much struck by all sorts of things in it. The only other Sapphire and Steel assignment I remember watching when it was first broadcast was the one in the railway station, which has had a similar impact on me.

I am therefore going to blog selectively about the things which take my fancy. If you want a sensible blog post about this assignment I would point you in the direction of the Television Heaven post about it: https://televisionheaven.co.uk/articles/sapphire-and-steel-assignment-six

One of the strongest impressions it made on me was that I have ever since loved stories or mysteries set in enclosed settings. Set a show or book in a country house, a railway train or station, and I'm perfectly happy. Perhaps one of the most extraordinary things about this one is setting it in a garage, surely an unusual choice for an isolated mystery.

I particularly love the way that this isn't merely an enclosed situation contained by walls or, say, snow: it's the way you get to the end of forecourt and there is just darkness with the sound of the traffic repeating itself. This scared me witless as a nine year old and is perhaps the strongest impression I got from this show!

And it's the way it's an utter mystery to everyone concerned. Sapphire and Steel usually seem to have some idea of why they are there, but this one is different. They have no idea what's going on. This assignment is different from the preceding five, and it's a pity that the show wasn't continued beyond this. I wonder whether the premature introduction of Silver and the way it's a complete mystery were intended to take the show in a slightly different direction.

Another wonderful thing is the attention to detail in the set and props. It's interesting that it is so obviously nothing but a set (and not that good a set, frankly), and yet the attention to detail is incredible. The whole setting is set up by the props, and we get to see both Sapphire and Steel examining props at the beginning, setting up the time and place. Surely the scene where Steel goes through the contents of the car is magnificently reminiscent and makes us contrast the quality of the car and its contents with the rather wooden set and props in the garage. Of course you could be contrasting the quality of 1948 with the quality of the late 1970s/early 1908s, or you could be contrasting the real car with the unreal setting of garage.

I love the feeling of a complete mystery here and the way nobody is trying to run away from it. They're all stuck with it and can only try to understand, something they don't achieve by the end of the first part. As escapist viewing, this literally can't be beaten as long as you're not stuck there yourself!

I would identify one criticism of the episode (or rather assignment) which is in the characters of the couple from 1948, who have appeared there for no apparent reason. I disagree with the analysis of the Television Heaven post I link above, which is that the characters are intended to have the same emotionlessness of Sapphire and Steel but that the actors can't pull it off. I think it's a fault in the characters, which is that their appearance and actions aren't consistent with the plot. Suddenly being wrenched from 1948 and plonked down thirty years later, you would expect the normal reaction to be disbelief, but strangely they accept that the garage and they have shot forward in time with no apparent difficulty. It's not that the characters aren't portraying this well enough, it's that they are depicting the intended characters but the characters aren't showing the right reactions. Another example is that the woman doesn't trust where they are so won't eat anything (which is a normal reaction and completely consistent) but will still have a glass of water. Why would you trust the water if you won't trust the food?

My absolutely favourite bit is the part where Steel looks at the pin up calendar to find out the date and doesn't notice or comment at the women on it. No, tell a lie, it's my joint favourite bit with Silver playing the fruit machine and not getting that he's not supposed to win every time.

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The Charnel-House

From bauhaus to beinhaus.

Moisei Ginzburg’s constructivist masterpiece: Narkomfin during the 1930s

. Recently I happened across a cache of extremely rare photos of Moisei Ginzburg’s constructivist masterpiece, Dom Narkomfin, in Moscow. They are reproduced here along with a brief popular exposition of the building’s history and current status by Athlyn Cathcart-Keays, which I thought quite good (despite an overly personalized narrative). Most of the photos were taken by three different individuals:

Charles Dedoyard, a Frenchman and contributor to the avant-garde journal L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui ;
Vladimir Gruntal, a noted constructivist photographer and member of Rodchenko ’s October Association; and
Robert Byron, a British travel writer and Byzantine historian known for his deep appreciation of architecture.

It’s difficult for me to say whose photographs of Narkomfin I like best, as each capture very different “moods” of the building. Byron’s are dark, brooding, and ominous, while those of Gruntal and Dedoyard are comparatively sunny, vivacious, and light. Someone who knows more about photography, especially architectural photography , might say more about them. Ginzburg’s revolutionary communal housing structure is as photogenic as ever, though the real complexity of the building tends to get lost in single snapshots (whether taken indoors or from the outside). Hopefully I’ll be writing a longer article on Narkomfin soon. Please contact me if you’d like to publish it.

Lately, apart from work, I’ve been wasting far too much time antagonizing tankies on Twitter — defending friends and Slavoj Žižek along the way — instead of spending it on more productive ventures. They’re young, and I’m bored, but it’s not like my trolling and ceaseless mockery will persuade them of anything. So I apologize to anyone I’ve offended these past several weeks. From now on, I’ll try to redirect my energies to more fruitful ends. Besides a few pieces I’ve already written and have stowed on the backburners, I think I’m going to finally finish that book for Zer0 . Enjoy these for now.

Charles Dedoyard

Vladimir gruntal.

Robert Byron

Moisei Ginzburg’s Narkomfin building in Moscow: A Soviet blueprint for collective living

Athlyn cathcart the guardian may 5, 2015.

. In the shadow of one of Stalin’s Seven Sisters skyscrapers in Moscow’s Presnenskii District, an unkempt park gives way to a trio of yellowing buildings in varying states of decay. The crumbling concrete and overgrown wall-garden don’t give much away, but this is the product of the utopian dreams of a young Soviet state — a six-storey blueprint for communal living, known as the Narkomfin building.

Designed by architects Moisei Ginzburg and Ignatii Milinis in 1928, the building represents an important chapter in Moscow’s development — as both a physical city and an ideological state. Built to house the employees of the Narodnyo Kommissariat Finansov (Commissariat of Finance), Narkomfin was a laboratory for social and architectural experimentation to transform the byt (everyday life) of the ideal socialist citizen.

In the years following the 1917 Russian revolution, living conditions in the newly established Soviet Union left much to be desired. Newcomers moving from the countryside with the promise of a new life arrived in an overcrowded and underdeveloped Moscow with very little infrastructure or housing. Architects were tasked with developing a solution for the housing shortage — and a framework to support the changing face of Russian society.

Enter the “social condenser,” an idea developed by the Society of Modern Architects, who spearheaded revolutionary ideas of collective living through standardized Stroikom units, confining private amenities to a single cell while facilities like kitchens and living space were communal. Thanks to this design, the Narkomfin building appears as one long apartment block, connected to a smaller communal structure by a covered walkway and a central garden space.

But communist values were not the only ideals behind the Narkomfin: women too were set to be emancipated. “Petty housework crushes, strangles and degrades…chains her to the kitchen,” wrote Lenin in A Great Beginning . “The real emancipation of women, real communism, will begin only where and when an all-out struggle begins…against this petty housekeeping.”

While the organization’s architecture was set to transform the byt of the domestic soviet, head architect Ginzburg was in no rush. He spoke of architecture as being able to harness the activity of the masses, and to “stimulate but not dictate” their transition into a “socially superior mode of life.”

Yet the communal and feminist values behind Narkomfin went stale almost as soon as the building was completed in 1932, and only a handful of such projects were completed before Stalin’s Five Year Plan halted the experiment. After Stalin’s rise to power, the communal and emancipatory values the architecture intended to inspire were quickly rejected as “leftist” or Trotskyist , and Narkomfin’s communal spaces fell in disrepair. Residents illegally installed makeshift kitchen units into their homes and the recreation space originally planned for the building’s rooftop was instead dominated by a penthouse apartment for the commissar of finance, Nikolai Miliutin.

Having since suffered years of neglect, Narkomfin is now caught in a tug-of-war battle between developers seeking to capitalise on the building’s central Moscow location, and those campaigning for its full restoration. Between 2006 and 2008, developer Alexander Senatorov bought up around 70% of the building’s 54 flats (the Moscow government owns a further 20%, with the remaining 10% owned by individual occupants). Soon after, Senatorov began working with Aleksei Ginzburg, the original architect’s grandson, to draw up plans for a boutique hotel.

The project fell flat after the 2008 financial crisis, however. The unique split-level units were then let to artists at a nominal fee, but more recently, rental hikes have been forcing tenants out. They have been replaced by commercial establishments including a falafel shop, shisha lounge, and yoga studio — and heightened security.

“These days it is more inviting to hipsters than historians,” says Natalia Melikova, a Moscow-based photographer and founder of the Constructivist Project . “It’s catering to a certain public now.”

Warned of the security guards’ aversion to snoopers, I entered Narkomfin by reciting a rehearsed request to visit the sixth-floor shisha lounge. Behind the heavy metal entrance door, I was eyeballed, quizzed — “who gave you information about us?” — and eventually taken up to the rooftop where, ironically, I was free to roam.

In the place where Miliutin’s penthouse once stood, the Healthy Space yoga studio now takes classes outside when the sun is shining, against a backdrop of Stalin’s ominous Kudrinskaia Square skyscraper.

Inside, “illegal repairs” have been carried out by Senatorov, who plans to spend around $12m (£7.7m) on a renovation project carried out by Kleinewelt Architects , set to include private accommodation, a mini-hotel and a small museum of constructivism. Inside an apartment-turned-falafel shop on the fifth floor, I spoke to a resident who told me that he values the collective mentality of the occupants of the building, for whom rental hikes and hasty evictions loom large.

For now, the building has been temporarily filled with artists and trendy businesses, but the ghost of the communal living experiment lingers in the hallways of Narkomfin.

Occupying a prime spot between the US embassy and a shopping center, the land around Narkomfin is ripe for real-estate development. Having previously appeared three times on the World Monuments Fund watch-list, Melikova has nominated the building once again for 2016 listing — but its worsening state puts it at risk . If considered more than 70% dilapidated, she explains, Narkomfin could be razed, rather than restored: “It is a crucial time for all stakeholders — which includes the developer, the city of Moscow, city residents, and the international community — to work together for the Narkomfin building.”

Many masterpieces of Soviet constructivism are now crumbling under capitalism, replaced by pastiche architecture or pale replicas of former buildings. When opening the neighboring luxury Novinskii Passage mall , former mayor Yuri Luzhov commented : “What a joy that in our city such wonderful, new shopping centers are appearing — not such junk,” pointing in the direction of Narkomfin.

Melikova, whose Constructivist Project aims to promote the preservation of the city’s avant-garde architecture, is hoping for a sensitive restoration of the building: “The changes are irreversible and Narkomfin’s authenticity is at stake. Moscow does not need another replica.”

Corner detail of the Narkomfin Communal House, a residential block built in what was then the Soviet Union, and photographed in 1931 by M.A. Ilyin. The image is in a show of Soviet Art and Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Source: Royal Academy via Bloomberg

With lightning telegrams:

8 thoughts on “ moisei ginzburg’s constructivist masterpiece: narkomfin during the 1930s ”.

why do you ignore Bob Avakian’s New Synthesis? You should engage with the New Synthesis, which will be the basis for any future communism.

Reblogged this on Hetty Startup, public historian .

Thank you Ross – this is wonderful.

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I worked in the shadow of this building for years.

It was like a ghost ship stranded in time. The windows were broken, galvanized tin sheets banged loose in the wind, volunteer poplar trees sprouted tall from the rooftop and window casements. Yet people lived there, lights would come on in the evening – I always assumed they were squatters squeezing the the last drops of livability from this beached relic.

Somehow I felt that this building was a friend, a sweet elderly neighbor left abandoned in the neighborhood.

I have a fondness, a relationship with this building, it’s an old familiar friend.

Thanks for the article.

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Beautiful article. Much appreciated. I was in love with the building since I had a good luck of visiting the apartment of comissar Miliutin in 1979 (still in the family back then). It was the most amazing space l have ever seen. Pictures attest to that. However, details and finishes were incredible in their own right. Their simplicity, harmony and beauty were astonishing. I felt truly privileged to have experienced it.

The Comprehensive Guide to Moscow Nightlife

Posted on April 14, 2018 July 26, 2018
by Kings of Russia
8 minute read

Moscow’s nightlife scene is thriving, and arguably one of the best the world has to offer – top-notch Russian women, coupled with a never-ending list of venues, Moscow has a little bit of something for everyone’s taste. Moscow nightlife is not for the faint of heart – and if you’re coming, you better be ready to go Friday and Saturday night into the early morning.

This comprehensive guide to Moscow nightlife will run you through the nuts and bolts of all you need to know about Moscow’s nightclubs and give you a solid blueprint to operate with during your time in Moscow.

What you need to know before hitting Moscow nightclubs

Prices in moscow nightlife.

Before you head out and start gaming all the sexy Moscow girls , we have to talk money first. Bring plenty because in Moscow you can never bring a big enough bankroll. Remember, you’re the man so making a fuzz of not paying a drink here or there will not go down well.

Luckily most Moscow clubs don’t do cover fees. Some electro clubs will charge 15-20$, depending on their lineup. There’s the odd club with a minimum spend of 20-30$, which you’ll drop on drinks easily. By and large, you can scope out the venues for free, which is a big plus.

Bottle service is a great deal in Moscow. At top-tier clubs, it starts at 1,000$. That’ll go a long way with premium vodka at 250$, especially if you have three or four guys chipping in. Not to mention that it’s a massive status boost for getting girls, especially at high-end clubs.

Without bottle service, you should estimate a budget of 100-150$ per night. That is if you drink a lot and hit the top clubs with the hottest girls. Scale down for less alcohol and more basic places.

Dress code & Face control

Door policy in Moscow is called “face control” and it’s always the guy behind the two gorillas that gives the green light if you’re in or out.

In Moscow nightlife there’s only one rule when it comes to dress codes:

You can never be underdressed.

People dress A LOT sharper than, say, in the US and that goes for both sexes. For high-end clubs, you definitely want to roll with a sharp blazer and a pocket square, not to mention dress shoes in tip-top condition. Those are the minimum requirements to level the playing field vis a vis with other sharply dressed guys that have a lot more money than you do. Unless you plan to hit explicit electro or underground clubs, which have their own dress code, you are always on the money with that style.

Getting in a Moscow club isn’t as hard as it seems: dress sharp, speak English at the door and look like you’re in the mood to spend all that money that you supposedly have (even if you don’t). That will open almost any door in Moscow’s nightlife for you.

Types of Moscow Nightclubs

In Moscow there are four types of clubs with the accompanying female clientele:

High-end clubs:

These are often crossovers between restaurants and clubs with lots of tables and very little space to dance. Heavy accent on bottle service most of the time but you can work the room from the bar as well. The hottest and most expensive girls in Moscow go there. Bring deep pockets and lots of self-confidence and you have a shot at swooping them.

Regular Mid-level clubs:

They probably resemble more what you’re used to in a nightclub: big dancefloors, stages and more space to roam around. Bottle service will make you stand out more but you can also do well without. You can find all types of girls but most will be in the 6-8 range. Your targets should always be the girls drinking and ideally in pairs. It’s impossible not to swoop if your game is at least half-decent.

Basic clubs/dive bars:

Usually spots with very cheap booze and lax face control. If you’re dressed too sharp and speak no Russian, you might attract the wrong type of attention so be vigilant. If you know the local scene you can swoop 6s and 7s almost at will. Usually students and girls from the suburbs.

Electro/underground clubs:

Home of the hipsters and creatives. Parties there don’t mean meeting girls and getting drunk but doing pills and spacing out to the music. Lots of attractive hipster girls if that is your niche. That is its own scene with a different dress code as well.

What time to go out in Moscow

Moscow nightlife starts late. Don’t show up at bars and preparty spots before 11pm because you’ll feel fairly alone. Peak time is between 1am and 3am. That is also the time of Moscow nightlife’s biggest nuisance: concerts by artists you won’t know and who only distract your girls from drinking and being gamed. From 4am to 6am the regular clubs are emptying out but plenty of people, women included, still hit up one of the many afterparty clubs. Those last till well past 10am.

As far as days go: Fridays and Saturdays are peak days. Thursday is an OK day, all other days are fairly weak and you have to know the right venues.

The Ultimate Moscow Nightclub List

Short disclaimer: I didn’t add basic and electro clubs since you’re coming for the girls, not for the music. This list will give you more options than you’ll be able to handle on a weekend.

Preparty – start here at 11PM

Classic restaurant club with lots of tables and a smallish bar and dancefloor. Come here between 11pm and 12am when the concert is over and they start with the actual party. Even early in the night tons of sexy women here, who lean slightly older (25 and up).

The second floor of the Ugolek restaurant is an extra bar with dim lights and house music tunes. Very small and cozy with a slight hipster vibe but generally draws plenty of attractive women too. A bit slower vibe than Valenok.

Very cool, spread-out venue that has a modern library theme. Not always full with people but when it is, it’s brimming with top-tier women. Slow vibe here and better for grabbing contacts and moving on.

High-end: err on the side of being too early rather than too late because of face control.

Secret Room

Probably the top venue at the moment in Moscow . Very small but wildly popular club, which is crammed with tables but always packed. They do parties on Thursdays and Sundays as well. This club has a hip-hop/high-end theme, meaning most girls are gold diggers, IG models, and tattooed hip hop chicks. Very unfavorable logistics because there is almost no room no move inside the club but the party vibe makes it worth it. Strict face control.

Close to Secret Room and with a much more favorable and spacious three-part layout. This place attracts very hot women but also lots of ball busters and fakes that will leave you blue-balled. Come early because after 4am it starts getting empty fast. Electronic music.

A slightly kitsch restaurant club that plays Russian pop and is full of gold diggers, semi-pros, and men from the Caucasus republics. Thursday is the strongest night but that dynamic might be changing since Secret Room opened its doors. You can swoop here but it will be a struggle.

Mid-level: your sweet spot in terms of ease and attractiveness of girls for an average budget.

Started going downwards in 2018 due to lax face control and this might get even worse with the World Cup. In terms of layout one of the best Moscow nightclubs because it’s very big and bottle service gives you a good edge here. Still attracts lots of cute girls with loose morals but plenty of provincial girls (and guys) as well. Swooping is fairly easy here.

I haven’t been at this place in over a year, ever since it started becoming ground zero for drunken teenagers. Similar clientele to Icon but less chic, younger and drunker. Decent mainstream music that attracts plenty of tourists. Girls are easy here as well.

Sort of a Coyote Ugly (the real one in Moscow sucks) with party music and lots of drunken people licking each others’ faces. Very entertaining with the right amount of alcohol and very easy to pull in there. Don’t think about staying sober in here, you’ll hate it.

Artel Bessonitsa/Shakti Terrace

Electronic music club that is sort of a high-end place with an underground clientele and located between the teenager clubs Icon and Gipsy. Very good music but a bit all over the place with their vibe and their branding. You can swoop almost any type of girl here from high-heeled beauty to coked-up hipsters, provided they’re not too sober.

Afterparty: if by 5AM you haven’t pulled, it’s time to move here.

Best afterparty spot in terms of trying to get girls. Pretty much no one is sober in there and savage gorilla game goes a long way. Lots of very hot and slutty-looking girls but it can be hard to tell apart who is looking for dick and who is just on drugs but not interested. If by 9-10am you haven’t pulled, it is probably better to surrender.

The hipster alternative for afterparties, where even more drugs are in play. Plenty of attractive girls there but you have to know how to work this type of club. A nicer atmosphere and better music but if you’re desperate to pull, you’ll probably go to Miks.

Weekday jokers: if you’re on the hunt for some sexy Russian girls during the week, here are two tips to make your life easier.

Chesterfield

Ladies night on Wednesdays means this place gets pretty packed with smashed teenagers and 6s and 7s. Don’t pull out the three-piece suit in here because it’s a “simpler” crowd. Definitely your best shot on Wednesdays.

If you haven’t pulled at Chesterfield, you can throw a Hail Mary and hit up Garage’s Black Music Wednesdays. Fills up really late but there are some cute Black Music groupies in here. Very small club. Thursday through Saturday they do afterparties and you have an excellent shot and swooping girls that are probably high.

Shishas Sferum

This is pretty much your only shot on Mondays and Tuesdays because they offer free or almost free drinks for women. A fairly low-class club where you should watch your drinks. As always the case in Moscow, there will be cute girls here on any day of the week but it’s nowhere near as good as on the weekend.

In a nutshell, that is all you need to know about where to meet Moscow girls in nightlife. There are tons of options, and it all depends on what best fits your style, based on the type of girls that you’re looking for.