Moscow's striptease club Dolls' sixth birthday celebrations went on for four nights in a row, beginning on Feb. 21. A total of 2,000 invitation cards had been sent out to members and regulars. The last night's visitors included, in addition to a crowd of top managers of Moscow's leading companies, fashion-designer Masha Tsigal, movie-director Sergei Solovyev, music-band-producer Stas Namin, stuntman Alexander Inshakov and Alexei Gusev, a journalist and the son of Moskovsky Komsomolets editor-in-chief Pavel Gusev. Gusev Jr. told a romantic story about his father finding his other half in Dolls. He added that he and his father have been club regulars since the very first day.

The night featured a festive costume show called "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" – a production by well-known choreographer Igor Pivorovich, though the costumes, as it usually turns out at this club, turned out to be superfluous after a while. The girls felt freer without them and, needless to say, were more exiting to look at.

The plot unfolds in Las Vegas in the 1950s where a young gambler, acted by Pivorovich, finds himself pulled apart by his lust for money and decadent pleasures, on the one hand, and his love for an ordinary girl, on the other. Eventually, it comes to a happy end where he chooses love and saves his soul.

Dolls deserves to be rated as the city's most decent and cozy strip club. There are no "private rooms" or closets and the girls feel themselves safe and dance with enthusiasm.

There is a semi-circular stage in the center before which divans are arranged, giving an excellent view of the stage from every seat. In the near future, it plans to open an "Aqua Room" with fountains and aquariums where girls will swim together with fishes. The "Aqua Room" is expected to become a VIP zone that will accommodate only 15 visitors at a time.

In fact, a VIP zone would seem to be a redundant feature in the club, which is obviously oriented on those who don't have to watch their spending. You'd better not cross the threshold unless you have at least $300 on you. During performances, girls walk around the room persistently asking for tips and offering to perform lap-dances for a mere $100. And, for another $100, you will kindly be permitted to touch her hand or leg.

The club's most respected patrons are middle-aged millionaires who feel at ease paying a fortune just to get in and buy 15-liter bottles of Moet & Chandon in the bar.

DOLLS
23b Krasnaya Presnya Ul.
Metro: Ulitsa 1905-ogo Goda
Tel: 252-5601
Hours: 1 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Cover: 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. - 870 rubles ;
8 p.m. to 6 a.m. — 1,500 rubles