Every corner is a pub: historian Ilya Sidorchuk will talk about the leisure of Leningraders in the 1920s

In the St. Petersburg art space mArs (Marsovo Pole, 3) on Wednesday, March 15, a meeting with the historian Ilya Sidorchuk will take place “Every corner is a pub!” The event will be held as part of the “Kvartirnik” project. The start is at 19:00.

Guests of the event will learn about the leisure activities of Leningraders in the 1920s.

Has St. Petersburg always been known as a cultural capital and a city-museum, or does Northern Palmyra have its own “skeletons in the closet”? The appeal to the 1920s, although it draws in the imagination of the layman scenes from The Great Gatsby, but through the eyes of a historian is seen in a completely different way. All-pervasive drunkenness, hooliganism of the working outskirts and drug addiction in the dens of homeless children, professional and domestic prostitution, not to mention underground and legal gambling.

Tired of the disgusting working routine, the townspeople were waiting for numerous pubs, newly opened restaurants, where there were separate rooms for solitude with “demonic women”, dangerous unlit streets, in a word – the nightlife was inspiring.

“Wine, women, waiters waiting for tea, gypsies, merry reckless drivers, table jokes and drinking companions” – this is how the evening of the Leningrad revelry of the NEP era went. No less diverse were the places to look for vicious leisure: a street, a hotel, a market, a train station, a hostel, or one of the many “live-snouts”, a bathhouse – everywhere one could find entertainment to one’s taste. For Petrograd/Leningrad, this time became a bright color that stood out from the general palette, which still helps to feel the originality and uniqueness of a bygone era.

Tickets for the event can be purchased on TimePad or at the box office before the event.