cafe pushkin

More than 40 years ago Gilbert Becaud, famous French chansonier, gave performances in Moscow. Returned to France he wrote a song “Natalie” and dedicated it to Natalie, his Russian interpreter. There are such words in this song: “We are walking around Moscow, visiting the Red Square and you are saying learned words about Lenin, the revolution, but I am thinking: “I wish we sat in the “Café Pushkin”, with snow falling outside the windows, we would be drinking hot chocolate and talking of another things… ”.
The song became incredibly popular in France, and it is no wonder that in Moscow the Frenchmen searched for the “Café Pushkin” and failed to find it because it was solely the poetic fantasy of Becaud. It was the song that compelled Andrey Dellos  to create “Café Pushkin”.  

And finally on June 4th, 1999, on Tverskoy boulevard Moscow,  “Café Pushkin” was opened in a Baroque mansion, which opening was attended by Gilbert Becaud and there he sang his world-famous song “Natalie”.

(from the cafe pushkin website)

what a lovely history, don't you think?

cafe pushkin was on all the tourist guides, and came highly recommended by our conceirge too! it's open 24h and has 3 floors so it wasn't too hard to get a table late on saturday night. the service was top notch. not a fan of russian food but the beef straganoff was the best i've ever had. the next table was getting increasingly inebriated as the night wore on. was curious as to what the dashing waiter was serving them off a glistening bar cart. turns out it was russian vodka of various forms. i asked for a shot and he laughed at me, suggesting i couldn't take it. turns out he was wrong! but at £7+ a pop, i wasn't about to down it in one go. far from an experienced vodka drinker but it was smooth with faint notes of honey that i quite liked :) funnily enough, the person who spoke the best english in the establishment was the lovely elderly coat check gentleman. which made me wonder what he used to do before he became a coat attendant working past midnight on a saturday...

took a slow walk back to the hotel and the mister insisted of stopping for drinks at the ritz O2 bar. was unimpressed but perhaps that's because it had started to drizzle and we couldn't sit in the outdoor section overlooking the kremlin. a friend asked on instagram if we felt the increased police presence in the capital. having not visited before and nothing to really compare it with, i told him i didn't. but during our walk from cafe pushkin to the ritz (about 10 minutes?) i felt relatively safe despite it being late and dark because every 100m or so there would be police standing by building entrances. the mister said my inherent trust in authority shows how i've grown up in a safe,, non-corrupt society and he's right! not that we were ever given cause to doubt the russian police, but he said crossing a bad cop wouldn't be a good idea.