The Master of the Rave

In the history of the Moscow club movement it's hard to find a more colourful figure than Timur Mamedov. He burst onto the scene in the mid-90s, proclaimed himself the Master of the Rave, ran two of the most notorious Moscow clubs and organised the loudest raves of that era. Then, just as swiftly, he vanished from the horizon, relocating for good to the trance paradise of Goa. That's where our people tracked him down and grilled him at length about the history of the first "Orbitas" and the legendary clubs "Aerodance" and "Les".

1994 - Manhattan Express
Timur Mamedov:
«After that, for about four years probably, I didn't show my face in the clubs, I lived a completely different life. I came back to the scene later, when an acquaintance of mine, a very well-known character back then, Misha Lo, brought me one day to Manhattan Express, to Ivan Salmaksov's party. Gavrila was playing that night, and I was very impressed by what was going on there. It was a dazzling spectacle - some strange dyed-hair freaks, flared trousers and strobe lights. Generally it was this crowd - Salmaksov, Zhenya Birman, Misha Paltus - who implanted this culture in Moscow, exported it from Piter. The first "Gagarins", Mobile - that was precisely their doing. And, I must say, these parties in the early 90s sharply divided people into the "rave" and the "non-rave" crowd, opened up a truly new era.»

1994 - Penthouse
«Back then the real trendsetters went to Penthouse and "Hermitage" - the bohemia and the people from the art scene. Loads of people came to a party - up to a thousand. They went to the parties because the music got them off. And in those first years in Moscow people were genuinely blown away by the parties, and the atmosphere was very positive. Gangsters, as far as I remember, were nowhere in sight among them - they started showing up in the clubs much later.
At Penthouse I got acquainted with Timur Lansky and Bogdan Titomir, and soon we'd already begun working together.»

1994 - parties at Bogdan Titomir's squat
«Bogdan was quite a cult figure back then. Now I reckon that if it hadn't been for him, there'd have been no Moscow rave culture. The thing is, a real rave is always built on a system of squats: places where, after a party, people could gather as one big crowd, get to know one another. At that time there was no talk whatsoever of any afterparties. And Bogdan had a huge flat with light-and-sound gear and a TurboSound system on Pushkinskaya, which could hold a hundred and fifty people at once. Many dreamed of getting in there. These private parties looked very European, and had that Bogdan squat not appeared back then, who knows how everything would have developed afterwards.»

December 1994 - end of 1995 - "Aerodance"

«In December 1994 we decided to open our own club. Working as a barman for Timur Lansky was a certain Andrei, who later opened the strip club "Gryozy". So this fellow, after Penthouse closed, was working in a Soviet-style restaurant in the air terminal building. It was a very plain establishment with tables, a stage and four lamps, where at night the lads from the terminal would come to booze. And all of it was called, oddly enough, "Aerodance". Because it was an air terminal and, like, dancing.
Lansky dug up this place and rang me: "Come over, take a look". I saw right away that the premises had enormous potential - big, spacious; the first floor 70 by 150 metres, the second a bit smaller, 40 by 50. I immediately arranged to hold a trial party there - in mid-December 1994. Back then we did a pure rave - we came, set up the sound and so many people showed up! It became clear a club could be opened here.
I've played almost all over the world and I can say honestly: I don't know whether there were any equivalents to "Aerodance" anywhere in the world. The club was done up by our decorators from Chill Out Planet, done with black drapes and styrofoam. And it was genuinely psychedelic design. Our artists, Seryozha Timonin and Lelik, earned fifteen hundred dollars a week for regularly changing the decorations. Every week there were themed parties, we brought in nearly all the big stars. For example, when a Japanese guy came to play - the whole club in hieroglyphs and everything around like in Japan.
The entrance was built as a semicircular silvery tunnel that led inside to the cash desk. Right there, at the entrance, hung a TV, on whose screen a girl in a cosmic voice greeted the "passengers": "Welcome to the club Aerodance. We wish you a pleasant flight. Please fasten your seatbelts". She looked like a classic stewardess, only with the "Aerodance" badge - a dancing Shiva.
We used real know-how. For instance, at "Aerodance" there was a holographic menu and five buttons on every table - "Cocktail", "Vodka" and the like. You could press a button and place an order. Later big screens started appearing, running tickers everywhere - we were constantly improving something.
Initially we were oriented towards techno and tech-house. House was played fairly rarely, as was trance. The thing is, back then there weren't many trance DJs, two or three at most. Gavrila played trance in those days, and Lenin. Well, and I'd sometimes get behind the decks too.
In 1995 "Aerodance" was a very popular establishment. The club was designed for about 1000 people, and I don't recall a single party where there were fewer than 900. On Friday and Saturday the club filled up completely, and on the bar alone we'd rake in up to 20 thousand in "greenbacks".»

At "Aerodance" there were club cards - with them the price was always lower, and entry was without queuing. We also printed discount flyers, and worked out a system for distributing them. This technology, by the way, is still used by clubs to this day.
In the end the club, despite the constant sell-out crowds, was very cosy, and people felt like part of a big family, which is why they kept coming. On the dance floor a dense frenzy reigned - girls in bras, bass, shouts of "Come on, come on". It was something new, very cool. At "Titanic", for instance, a completely different public went, a serious one, with a gangster tinge. Gangsters came to us too, but they behaved differently. "Aerodance" changed their worldview in many ways - by early morning they'd be dancing arm in arm with the ravers.
Things with security were rather amusing. We recruited it from petty micro-hooligans, and then drilled them into shape. They were very correct at the door, but always ready for action. And they were brought up by Petya Kovboy [Cowboy], a very good head of security. Only I still don't understand whether he's trained in any kind of martial art, since in all my time with him he never once got into a fight. He always handled conflict situations correctly, never let it come to a punch-up. And the main security duties were carried out by the bratva, a serious lot. We worked with two gangs that were constantly rushing off to showdowns, and everything stayed smooth. Serious conflicts arose fairly rarely.
Generally the "Aerodance" team turned out rather strange. We had one guy, nicknamed Prokopan. He was ready for anything. He lived under our stage and had everything down there - from porn to bits of bread. At "Aerodance" he performed as part of the Kvas Theatre - during their psychedelic show he'd crawl out onto the stage naked, smeared all over with red paint. Which, by the way, wouldn't wash off, and he then walked around the city for ages in that state, scaring people.
And this fellow had a very particular vision. I once gave him some paint and said - paint something. And he decorated the entire toilet with fluorescent paints and the most inconceivable drawings, so that people would linger in there for several hours.
It all ended over something stupid. We were renting from the restaurant's owner, he wanted something, some percentage, and, well, on the whole we didn't come to terms. Opening a club with the old name in a new place wasn't appealing. We had to bury the idea.
It so happened that we left at our peak. Now I understand that the most important thing for a club is to reach the summit and leave. That's what's cool! It later turned out that every one of my projects went out at its peak and became a legend. It was a conscious choice.»

1994 - the first "Orbita"
«In parallel with "Aerodance" we were also busy with big rave projects, the festival "Orbita". The first one was held at the "Olimpiysky" in 1994. We were just doing renovations at "Aerodance", and we needed money. The idea came to throw a rave and make some cash.
I had a girl I knew, with good connections at the "Olimpiysky". We looked at that enormous space, all crammed with fairground attractions, and decided that "Orbita" had to be done right there. We started talking with Lisovsky. At first he had serious doubts, didn't take me seriously. Back then I kept to a semi-punk style - some fluorescent crap sticking out of my head. But an acquaintance of mine, a gangster, put in a word for me, and we agreed on everything: he takes on the bar, I bring the people. We did proper promotion. We gathered all the DJs, regardless of style. In the end, about four thousand people came. It turned into a real festival.

Text: Roman Zhabin