Moscow Nights

Moscow Nights is a riveting photo essay on Moscow's nightlife by world-renowned photographer Antonin Kratochvil. It is a voyeuristic tour through the decadence and hedonism of the new "Golden Youth" as they enjoy their spoils. Kratochvil captures everything from go-go dancers-both performing for admirers and catching a cigarette behind the scenes-to club-goers cavorting aboard a yacht that once was Stalin's and writhing on the dance floor. Through the nighttime journey, Kratochvil also exposes the reader to a much deeper social commentary on the new generation and its heritage. Deliberate desire describes Mother Russia's coldest credential. The emotion is at times cruel and other times wanton. It is a controlled dispassion that is, today, so apparent in the gilded circles of her "Golden Youth." The offspring of Russia's new Czars possess the suave indifference that is Mother Russia's true nature and that of her elite; a black mark of distinction worn like a beauty spot for maximum effect. It is a force that has existed without end-the foreplay equal to the climax, seduction dependent upon opulent wealth. This is the first photo essay on Moscow nightlife: powerful, uncensored, beautiful, and arousing.Antonin Kratochvil (born 1947, Czechoslovakia) is a founding member of VII, the esteemed cooperative picture agency. Over the past twenty-five years, his diverse assignments have taken him around the world. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, TIME, Conde Nast Traveler, GEO, Mother Jones, Smithsonian, Natural History, and the United Nations Choices magazine. His other books are Broken Dream, Incognito, and Vanishing.