Interview

Striptease pioneer By Sveta Graudt

Issue 2 December 2003 - January 2004

Sveta Graudt interviews Dmitry Zakharov, general director of Dolls, Moscow’s first strip club (who declined to be photographed).

How has the striptease scene been changing?

When we first opened nine years ago, there used to be long lines of customers waiting to get in. Striptease was such a novelty in Russia. People used to have different money then, and a lot of it. They would sit in Planet Hollywood nearby and wait for the manager to call them when a table would free up.

A lot more foreigners used to come to Dolls in the past. But now it is a few Japanese businessmen and some visiting foreign showbiz folks and athletes. To attract new foreign customers, we are thinking of introducing a no cover charge policy for foreign passport holders. Our clientele is more or less stable now: top businessmen, famous politicians and well-heeled showmen and sportsmen.

	Luke Tchalenko
	Club: Dolls

What do you think of women coming to your club?

Sometimes it is couples who come to enjoy the show or it can be a group of retired strippers who stopped dancing because they married well or started their own business. They come to remember their good old days in the club and order a lap dance from their friends who are still performing. When I look at society pages in the back of glossy magazines, I see many of our girls who got married to some well-off people. In fact, many of them got hitched to our clients.

What’s driving the opening of all the new clubs?

Men are known to have certain weaknesses: money, cars. They also enjoy watching beautiful women. There’s a big demand for this kind of thing.

Men like to come here after a hard week at work, eat a good meal, smoke a cigar and watch a beautiful woman undress to music. Maybe he has family or business problems, and here he can talk to an intelligent girl and that will make him feel better; 85 to 90 percent of our girls have a higher education.

How do you judge the quality of a good club?

It should offer confidentiality, security and service. It should be clean, with good waitresses, and the showgirls must be well-behaved.

What is the difference between a strip club and a gentlemen’s club?

They are the same thing.

Is there a difference between Russian and foreign striptease clubs?

As far as I know, the majority of strip joints in America are either aimed at the middle class or truck drivers. Also I haven’t seen any acrobatic or staged costumed numbers there. And as I said, most of our girls have university degrees. Not all girls can perform those crazy stunts on the pole; you must have serious gymnastics training to do that kind of thing.