Ben Schreckinger, Politico: Tinder Woes, Suspicious Landlords and Snarky Bosses: Young and Russian in D.C.
Washington’s young émigré crowd is beginning to feel like they’re living in a spy novel. And they’re the bad guys.
Not so long ago, the Russian émigré party scene in Washington was off the hook. Every weekend, promoters would throw Slavic night bashes at venues like Ozio on M Street and Eden on Farragut Square. Euro-pop beats pounded and vodka shots flowed. In 2013, Mari Vanna, a three-story restaurant and nightclub littered with Soviet-era kitsch, opened in DuPont Circle and became the Russian diaspora’s de facto party house. Its “KGB Karaoke” nights on Wednesdays raged into the morning hours. Top Russian acts like Ivanushki International would swing through town to play gigs, and Washington Capitals stars Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin would sometimes join in the revelry with students and summer workers from all over the former Soviet Union.
“Before, I would call an event and say, ‘Hey we’re going to have Ukrainian Independence Day,’ and everybody would come,” Andrey Bessarabov, better known as DJ Bezza, a Soviet-born IT worker who moonlights for Troika Party, a promoter of Eastern European club nights in the area. “It didn’t matter Ukrainian, Russian. Nobody differentiated.”
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WNU Editor: I can spend all night talking about my own experiences in official Washington on how my analysis and work was highly regarded, praised, and used .... until they found out about my background. Bottom line. Doors are shut in Washington if you are from Russia.