The Eurovision Song Contest is coming to Moscow this Month. Here’s where the Euro Stars – past and present – Would Stay, Eat And Drink in the Russian Capital

MOSCOW LOVES TO PLAY THE HOST.

Then 70,000 Englishmen were set to descend on the city for the European Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea last year, visa restrictions were lifted, the metro was kept open till late and the volatile police were put on their best behaviour.

This month, flags and bunting will flutter as Moscow goes all giggly and gracious as it hosts the Eurovision song contest for the first time (12-16 May). Singers from 43 countries and thousands of Eurovision groupies will come for the week-long carnival that has become a camp pop substitute for more fiercer forms of national rivalry.

Russia has been dying to host (and win) Eurovision for years, sending its most famous singers, including pseudo-lesbian pop duet Tatu, to take part in the contest but it was only last Bilan, at the second attempt, won with a very flamboyant Eurovision performance involving an Olympic ice-skating champion, a tiny rink, a Hungarian violinist and a priceless Stradivarius. Oh yes, and not forgetting the song I Believe.

The city will put on its best show – as anyone who has heard Russian pop knows, the cheesiness of Euro pop is very close to the local heart. Anyone with a ticket will apparently get their visas more quickly than usual. Check with your local embassy about the speeded-up process.

In the meantime, so that you’re singing from the same hymn sheet, here’s our (firmly tonguein- cheek) guide to the different tribes of Eurovision song contest visitors…

BE SUPER-TROOPERS LIKE…
ABBA

Vladimir Putin denied recently that he hired the Abba tribute group Björn Again for £20,000 to play a private concert for him and eight other friends. If the real Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Anni-Frid did visit, they would feel right at home at the Swedish-run hotel, Katerina [+7 (495) 7952444, www.katerinahotels.com], on the embankment, just a short walk from the Kremlin. After that they could retire to the summer garden of Scandinavia [7 Maly Palashevsky, +7 (495) 9375630, www.scandinavia.ru], a Swedish-run establishment that has survived almost 15 years in the cut-throat Moscow restaurant business. The hamburgers are some of the best in the city.

If, like Abba, your group splits up, boys can go to Night Flight [17 Tverskaya Ulitsa. +7 (495) 6294165, www.nightflight.ru], a legendary club run by the owners of Scandinavia, whose advertising slogan ‘Do it Tonight’ explains much more than any description of the bacchanalia inside the club could. The girls can take the low road too, off to Krasnaya Shapochka [14 Akadeimka Sakharova, +7 (495) 6078605], the city’s most famous strip club for women – there are dozens of such clubs — whose crazy menu allows you to have a shower with the stripper of your choice or get him sacked for a day.

ROCK MOSCOW LIKE…

LORDI

Lordi, the Finnish rockers and surprise winners in 2006, have faces that look as if they have just spent a vodka-fuelled night at Petrov Vodkin restaurant – where there are more than 300 types of vodka – but without trying the selection of zakuski or starters [3/7 Pokrovka Ulitsa, +7 (495) 6235350, www.vodkin.ru]. No self-respecting Muscovite would drink vodka without eating in between shots.

The hideous rockers probably wouldn’t be let through the door of the ultra-modern, spaceship-shaped Swissôtel [+7 (495) 7879800, www.swissotel.com].

Instead, they should probably find some satisfaction at Godzilla [+7 (495) 699 4223, www.godzillashostel.com], a fine hostel in the centre of town where you can get a bed for
less than £15 and a room for £50. Still it is always worth popping into the Swissôtel to see the types who grace the City Space bar on the 33rd floor.

LIVE THE NIGHTLIFE LIKE…

DIMA BILAN

Dima Bilan was one of the biggest pop stars in Russia even before he won the Eurovision Song Contest. All you have to do to see his influence is check out the huge number of mullets among young Muscovites.

Hairstyle aside, Bilan is a fabulously fashionable type with a fondness for designer jeans, expensive cars and jetting off to luxury destinations making videos of himself showing off his naked chest. He has been spotted in Kalina [8 Novinsky Bulvar. +7 (495) 2295519, www.kalinabar.ru], one of the more trendy top floor bars all round town where you can get a cocktail for £15 and sit and watch the shimmering lights of Moscow below.

After that, Dima would head off to Rai [9a Bolotnaya Naberezhnaya, +7 (495) 7671474], one of the city’s top clubs, where you can meet wild panthers, half-naked women, dwarfs and acrobats and where tables cost tens of thousands of pounds just to book.

To sleep, only a hotel like Golden Apple [Uitsa Malaya Dmitrovka, +7 (495) 980 7000, www.goldenapple.ru] in central Moscow would suit flamboyant divas. One of the city’s first boutique hotels, Golden Apple is in a refurbished 19th-century building where rooms start from £350. Each floor has a different design and the first floor has a tempting Golden Apple luring you in to the designer restaurant.

TAKE IT EASY LIKE…
CLIFF RICHARD He should have been Britain’s second Eurovision champion but it recently came out that General Franco needed a win more, and so fixed the contest for the Spanish entry in 1968.

Never known for his wild parties, Sir Cliff would probably enjoy the old-fashioned atmosphere at Metropol, with its art deco furniture and close proximity to the Bolshoi Theatre and the Kremlin [1/4 Teatralny proezd, +7 (499) 5017800 www.metropol-moscow.ru].

A committed Christian like Cliff could then drop by St Andrew’s, an Anglican church that is a tourist attraction in its own right, a slice of middle England amidst the onion domes of Moscow [8 Voznesensky Pereukok, +7 (495) 6290990, www.standrewsmoscow.org].

To get back down to earth, dine around the corner at Stanislavsky 2 [4 Leontievsky Ulitsa, +8 (903) 5890616], a small familyrun restaurant where your homemade food is cooked in the kitchen off the front room. Calming, friendly and not open too late – just right for good boy Cliff.

SPEND A MILLION LIKE…

ANDREW LLOYDWEBBER

When the composer Lord Lloyd-Webber came to Russia late last year, he was given an audience with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who confessed his love for Webber musicals and promised to vote for the British entry. High praise indeed – plus it could just save the UK from an ignominious nil points rating.

Multimillionaire Webber could spend a large chunk of his fortune staying in the Ritz- Carlton [+7 (495) 2258888. www.ritzcarlton.com], a new five-star hotel that is right on the city’s main artery, Tverskaya, and a short walk to the Kremlin. Rooms start at £600 a night and everything else, from the abundance of marble to the champagne breakfasts is luxury, millionaire style. Even the toiletries in the sumptuous bathrooms are by Italian luxury house Bulgari.

Don’t forget to have cocktails in the O2 bar on the top floor where you can sit on a huge roof terrace and look straight down into the Kremlin and Red Square.

Art lover and collector that he is, Webber could also wander off to the Tretyakov Gallery [10/12 Lavrushensky Pereulok, www.treyakovgallery.ru] to see the best of Russian art.

Who knows, he might get an idea for a musical – the Volga Boatmen show anyone?

CAMP IT UP LIKE…
GRAHAM NORTON

The sharp-tongued TV host takes over the mantle of Terry Wogan as commentator for this year’s contest. If the nerves get to him, he can settle into the Moscow Renaissance Hotel [18/1 Olympiski prospect, +7 (495) 9319000, www.marriott.com], not too flashy but a good quality four-star hotel – from under £150 a night — which is literally a hop, skip and a jump from the Olympiisky Stadium, which hosted the boxing in the 1980 Olympics and will be the venue for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest [Olympiisky Prospekt, www.olimpik.ru].

Although Moscow’s mayor Yuri Luzhkov has banned any gay parades in the city, that doesn’t mean that the city doesn’t have a thriving gay community. Three Monkeys [71 Sadovnicheskyia Ulitsa, +7 (495) 9151563, www.gaycentral.ru] is one of the oldest gay clubs in the city and its transvestite shows will reflect the spirit of the contest.