The Hungry Duck
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The Hungry Duck was a legendary Moscow bar of the 1990s. At the peak of its popularity, "the Duck", as it was known, was an icon of Moscow hedonism, an unbridled, sexual, and sometimes violent venue. The Duck's "Ladies Night" was exceptionally popular, bringing in as many as 920 women in a single night. The patrons of the Duck were uninhibited, free to dance upon the bar and remove their clothing.
The most recent owner, Canadian Doug Steele, remarked on how the Duck's environment came to be:
A lot of the things that became Hungry Duck trademarks started out as simple adjustments to the small space the club gave people to dance in. The whole dancing-on-the-bartop thing began at a Pepsi Foods corporate party shortly after we opened. They'd been drinking and wanted to dance. That's what's so great about Russians: they're not as self-conscious and inhibited as Westerners. My philosophy was just to let them do what they want, see where it went, because it was clear that the customers knew exactly how to enjoy themselves if only given the chance. My only job was to market it. After word got out that customers not only got away with dancing on the furniture but were actually encouraged, others started doing it too. From there, it just snowballed.
In 1999 the Duck was targeted by influential members of the Russian government, after a tour of the establishment scandalized authorities who witnessed young Russian women voluntarily performing enthusiastic sex acts on a Nigerian male stripper while the bar played the Soviet National Anthem. The Duck was subsequently a target of Russian media and denounced over thirty times on the floor of the Duma. In the following months the Hungry Duck was inordinately struck by police raids, Health Inspectors, Fire Marshals, Narcotics Agents, and other local authorities. As business became untenable, Steele decided to give up the enterprise. It still operates, and in the same location (near Kuznetsky Most metro station), but it has "lost its mojo".
