Crisis, say you.

Alright, this is the real sign of the crisis: I just got home from the "technical opening" of a new flashy jazz club in downtown Moscow, right on the Arbat street (the tourist walking zone where visiting Americans and Europeans get their super expensive fur hats, bad imitations of the old Soviet military uniform, and balalaikas that would never play.) I had a couple of nice caipirinhas, and Anna had something blue and smelly, called Jazz -- it definitely involved some Curaçao and sugar. Musically, the crowd of old jazz aficionados (peers of one of the club's owners, Victor,) journalists and jazz musicians was treated the so-called MosGorTrio, Moscow City Trio, led by great pianist Yakov Okun, with their special guest, Craig Handy. Cheers, guys. If that is the crisis, I like it. After all, it was the previous major crisis in Russia in 1998 when we started that seemingly hopeless project called Jazz.Ru, which is, for the last ten years, my daily bread.

It was the technical opening, though: the club has no official name yet, and the big party is yet to be given. Let's see. No predictions. Capairinhas were refreshing, though.