Russian Revels and Dash Arts: The Siberian Paperclip Factory Canteen
The recent phenomenon of the pop-up is now everywhere. There are whole sub cultures of pop-up art, shops, cafes and events all across London. It is a quite brilliant idea and a great way to meet like minded people. It’s also great for getting to see lots of different venues. One of the best sources for finding these is London Pop-ups. Dining clubs with themed food and entertainment are becoming seriously popular and it can be a challenge apparently, getting yourself onto a guest list for invites and details of secret locations.
I heard about the activities of the women behind Russian Revels through Pushkin House. They have been running their unique supper clubs for a year or so now and they put some serious creative efforts in to their food. It is a fabulous experience if you like Russian food and culture. It is also seriously weird, so if you don’t like all things Russian, you might find yourself a bit confused as to what everyone is up to. Dash Arts are an international arts organisation currently focussing on the countries of the former Soviet Union. Previously they have organised two years of dance, art theatre and festivals from the Arabic community in London. There is some pretty impressive stuff in their back catalougue. Dash Arts - Arabic Series, it’s definitely worth watching. It is also very exciting that they chose the former soviet countries as the material for their next programme. On the first Wednesday of every month there is a new ‘café’ mostly at RichMix Cinema in Bethnal Green. The concept of the pop up ‘café’ event is a really inclusive idea. It’s a mix of theatre, music, comedy and food with a bit of audience participation. All of this is right up my street.
Dash hosted another café last week with Russian Revels. It was strangely called ‘Lunch at the Paperclip Factory Canteen’. We, the workers, were to attend in character and costume, with our best paperclips. The idea is to celebrate the workers canteen;
‘Russian Revels and Dash Arts would like to rehabilitate the Soviet Stolovka because we believe the project of creating quality mass catering in the first half of the 20th century was truly progressive. The goal was to transform the way ordinary people ate on a daily basis into the most developed, healthy and fair system in the world’
The evening was well organised. Everyone was given a spot on a table and there was a nice, friendly atmosphere with both some English and some Russian spoken. The evening was presented by the energetic Sophie from Dash Arts and the downright odd DJ Max Reinhardt who also hosts a regular club night, Radio Gagarin, along with alternative music shows on BBC Radio 3. He also runs a lot of music learning workshops with disabled children. Strangely he makes a convincing factory director and the whole performance was quite funny. There was also clearly a lot of effort put into making the venue look convincingly retro-Soviet. The images on the projector were a mix of worker poster art, food and symbols from the old world.
We were first tasked with creating art from our collection of paperclips. This is more difficult than it sounds. One Russian woman on my table displayed a real touch of creative genius only usually found in Blue Peter presenters or primary school teachers. She created the Olympic Rings from coloured paperclips which we then mounted on white paper and straws in a couple of shot glasses. Our own Olympic Flag, most timely for Socchi next year, we thought.
The centrepiece of the evening, the food, followed our paperclip art experiment. Everyone was to pay in cash, there were three courses and it was very good indeed. I had the buterbrot (open sandwich) which is an artful construct of pickles and herring on rye with caraway, dill and sesame flavours. The Siberian pelmeni came next and was perfectly soft and peppery, served with light soured cream and a shredded cabbage salad. For desert I could have had some traditional apricot compote or a Siberian Mess of wild berries cream and pine nuts, had I been hungry enough.
Judging of our creative efforts followed and was intense. Some attempts to corrupt the system were made and bribes were offered. My table got a special mention for our Olympic Flag, but we were ultimately, unfortunately disqualified for some canteen queue jumping. I pointed out that Russians don’t stand in queues anymore, as my recent Moscow experiences will show. However, this made no difference and the team of Ukrainians on the table next to us won instead. They had rather ingeniously used the flyers and menus together with their paperclips to construct elaborate battleships and aeroplanes. Ukrainians are a very resourceful and smart people. Remember this, it might be useful.
With the eating and clip art resolved there was some live music. Elena Dana is a singer / songwriter from Russia and she performed a few folk ballads on stage that had most of the Russians in the audience singing along. Igor Outkine is apparently something of a famous accordion player and again he had them stamping their feet and singing along.
It was a nicely inventive way to meet some new people, practise my Russian and eat some pelmeni. Next month is Georgian night, a film screening is planned and hopefully some Khachapuri and lamb stew might appear. I think I’ll go.
I heard about the activities of the women behind Russian Revels through Pushkin House. They have been running their unique supper clubs for a year or so now and they put some serious creative efforts in to their food. It is a fabulous experience if you like Russian food and culture. It is also seriously weird, so if you don’t like all things Russian, you might find yourself a bit confused as to what everyone is up to. Dash Arts are an international arts organisation currently focussing on the countries of the former Soviet Union. Previously they have organised two years of dance, art theatre and festivals from the Arabic community in London. There is some pretty impressive stuff in their back catalougue. Dash Arts - Arabic Series, it’s definitely worth watching. It is also very exciting that they chose the former soviet countries as the material for their next programme. On the first Wednesday of every month there is a new ‘café’ mostly at RichMix Cinema in Bethnal Green. The concept of the pop up ‘café’ event is a really inclusive idea. It’s a mix of theatre, music, comedy and food with a bit of audience participation. All of this is right up my street.
Dash hosted another café last week with Russian Revels. It was strangely called ‘Lunch at the Paperclip Factory Canteen’. We, the workers, were to attend in character and costume, with our best paperclips. The idea is to celebrate the workers canteen;
‘Russian Revels and Dash Arts would like to rehabilitate the Soviet Stolovka because we believe the project of creating quality mass catering in the first half of the 20th century was truly progressive. The goal was to transform the way ordinary people ate on a daily basis into the most developed, healthy and fair system in the world’
The evening was well organised. Everyone was given a spot on a table and there was a nice, friendly atmosphere with both some English and some Russian spoken. The evening was presented by the energetic Sophie from Dash Arts and the downright odd DJ Max Reinhardt who also hosts a regular club night, Radio Gagarin, along with alternative music shows on BBC Radio 3. He also runs a lot of music learning workshops with disabled children. Strangely he makes a convincing factory director and the whole performance was quite funny. There was also clearly a lot of effort put into making the venue look convincingly retro-Soviet. The images on the projector were a mix of worker poster art, food and symbols from the old world.
We were first tasked with creating art from our collection of paperclips. This is more difficult than it sounds. One Russian woman on my table displayed a real touch of creative genius only usually found in Blue Peter presenters or primary school teachers. She created the Olympic Rings from coloured paperclips which we then mounted on white paper and straws in a couple of shot glasses. Our own Olympic Flag, most timely for Socchi next year, we thought.
The centrepiece of the evening, the food, followed our paperclip art experiment. Everyone was to pay in cash, there were three courses and it was very good indeed. I had the buterbrot (open sandwich) which is an artful construct of pickles and herring on rye with caraway, dill and sesame flavours. The Siberian pelmeni came next and was perfectly soft and peppery, served with light soured cream and a shredded cabbage salad. For desert I could have had some traditional apricot compote or a Siberian Mess of wild berries cream and pine nuts, had I been hungry enough.
Judging of our creative efforts followed and was intense. Some attempts to corrupt the system were made and bribes were offered. My table got a special mention for our Olympic Flag, but we were ultimately, unfortunately disqualified for some canteen queue jumping. I pointed out that Russians don’t stand in queues anymore, as my recent Moscow experiences will show. However, this made no difference and the team of Ukrainians on the table next to us won instead. They had rather ingeniously used the flyers and menus together with their paperclips to construct elaborate battleships and aeroplanes. Ukrainians are a very resourceful and smart people. Remember this, it might be useful.
With the eating and clip art resolved there was some live music. Elena Dana is a singer / songwriter from Russia and she performed a few folk ballads on stage that had most of the Russians in the audience singing along. Igor Outkine is apparently something of a famous accordion player and again he had them stamping their feet and singing along.
It was a nicely inventive way to meet some new people, practise my Russian and eat some pelmeni. Next month is Georgian night, a film screening is planned and hopefully some Khachapuri and lamb stew might appear. I think I’ll go.
