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29 March 2024

'Putin party' at Moscow night club perturbs premier

Published
By AFP

A glitzy Moscow night club sparked controversy on Tuesday by advertising a dance night called Putin Party, with a flyer praising the strongman prime minister as an "object of desire."

The Rai, or Heaven, nightclub in central Moscow advertised the event on a banner across the central Novy Arbat street, reading "Putin Party" with the slogan "I want a prime minister".

The authorities said they could pull the plug on the event, however.

Putin's press secretary said Tuesday he would consult lawyers over whether the club broke a law that using a person's name and image requires the person's consent.

"We will consult lawyers and decide what to do," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the RIA Novosti news agency.

A flyer for the party on the club's website is a mock ballot paper to choose "an object of desire." Putin's name is decorated with a lipstick kiss.

The club's art director, Artyom Shatrov, told AFP the event would go ahead despite Peskov's comment.

"Nobody told us to cancel it. The Kremlin did not contact us. There wasn't any point in cancelling it," he said.

The party's theme was chosen by a poll of female clubbers, who were asked to vote for the most attractive man from a list including footballer David Beckham and actor Bruce Willis, Shatrov said.

The highlight of the party will be a DJ presenting a remix of a classic Fats Domino song, "Blueberry Hill," that Putin performed at a recent star-studded charity gala in Saint Petersburg, he said.

"It's some kind of a joke. It's not anything political."

Putin flexed his toned muscles in a topless photoshoot and has been celebrated as a sex symbol in song and with an erotic calendar.

Girl group Poyushiye Vmeste, or Singing Together, sang in a popular hit from 2002 that: "I want a man like Putin, full of strength/ I want a man like Putin, who doesn't drink."

Last year, female students at Moscow State University posed in lacy lingerie for a calendar to celebrate Putin's birthday, called "Vladimir Vladimirovich, We love you. Happy Birthday Mr Putin."

Putin later praised the calendar as "beautiful" in an interview with British GQ magazine.