Business After-hours

Last Wednesday night via3pr and Bensonhurst Business Club held an event called the Business After-hours at the Russian Samovar Restaurant in Midtown. People from all kinds of business backgrounds attended: store owners, doctors, dentists, filmmakers, salon owners, along with representatives from Netcost Market, Lucello Jewelry Company, Imperia Vodka and Verizon. It turned out to be a fabulous little soiree at Russian Samovar’s elegant and enchanting V.I.P lounge, with guests mingling, networking, and indulging in drinks.

The point of the Business After-hours event was to help people network, and the evening’s host, Irina Shmeleva made networking fun and painless by inventing games that helped the guests relax and meet each other. In case that it didn’t work, she spent the rest of the evening introducing everyone to everyone else. There was a short speech given by Alec Teyel, HSBC bank’s Small Business Relationship Manager, who co-organized the event. Alex then introduced the guest speaker Robert Levin, the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of New York Enterprise Report Magazine, who is the publisher and the editor-in-chief of a hugely popular magazine “The New York Enterprise Report”. Robert shared some great tips on how to make small businesses grow, emphasizing how crucial networking is in the process of building and maintaining a business. All in all, it was a great night and many guests departed with a smile. We are all looking forward to the next one.

Vodka Tasting Evening

Yesterday was a wonderful July evening in Manhattan. One of the best restaurants in the city, "Russian Samovar" with the help of the public relations agency via3pr organized some Vodka-Tasting action for many well known citizens of New York as well as others, less known. To keep everyone entertained various competitions were organized centered around the most popular Russian drink- Vodka. In one game, the competitors had to taste four different flavors of vodka (cranberry, horseradish, peach, coriander) and guess the flavor of the vodka. Speed was a key factor in this contest and Oleg Sulkin, a well known journalist of the Russian newspaper Novoe Russkoe Slovo was clearly the winner. For his efforts he was awarded “Romance with a Samovar”, by Anatoly Nayman, a book written about the Russian Samovar. Other winners of the night included Dima Poyman, Arkady Milavsky, and Simon Kapilov who all received bottles of Vodka courtesy of the Kings Bay liquor store. Even though these were the winners, there were no losers, as prizes and gifts were awarded to all participants. After the contest, the contestants had to walk in a straight line and read letters off of a chart under the supervision of makeshift police officer Olga Shendrik who was wearing a very intriguing policewoman outfit. Later on, all were allowed to try the different flavored vodkas. For the invited guests a buffet table was organized and for this special night, vodka was available to all the guests.
The second half of the evening was equally entertaining as it involved the reading of poetry, some home-made, and others by well-known authors. The poetry was devoted to the Russian favorite drink vodka and other related activities. The well-acclaimed musician Sergey Pobedinsky sang and played guitar. Throughout the night guests were drinking Balinoff vodka as well as the flavored vodka and at the conclusion of the evening all guests were given mini bottles of Imperia vodka. In general the night went according to plan and was simply wonderful. All guests were overjoyed and promised to return to this great venue more often. The proud owner of "Russian Samovar", Roman Kaplan promised to arrange such parties again. At nearly midnight everyone went home with big smiles on their faces.

Nadia Petrova

Nadia Petrova, a great Russian Tennis champion came to the Samovar to celebrate her victory over Venus Williams. She likes traditional Russian dishes and ordered borsht and pelmeni. Nadia looked radiant and happy and drank a little cherry vodka later in the evening. She asked the pianist to play “an unknown star is shining over us”. The presence of a star makes the evening exciting and another good evening at the Russian Samovar electrifying.

Crazy Night at RS

Yesterday was a crazy night at the restaurant. As they say, “the joint was jumping.” All the seats were taken. Among the guests was Valery Ponomarev, the famous trumpeter, who played with Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers and with the greatest American bands. Ponomarev, along with many other guests, came to congratulate TV journalist, Olga Cherny on the upcoming birth of her first child; it’s going to be a boy. At another table sat the Editor-in-Chief of Sova Magazine, Elena Nesterova, who looked great in her sexy cocktail dress. Across from her sat Alain Malraux, the Playwright and the son of the famous Frenchman, Andre Malraux, who was Minister of Culture in the time of General De Galle’s presidency. Alain is 60 years old and very distinguished Playwright whose play was recently shown in an off-Broadway production. Most of the people at the tables knew each other and the atmosphere was one of friendliness and goodwill. Pianist, Alexander Izbitser entertained the guests through the night.

Celebrate the Present

Elizabeth Holtzman, a former member of US Congress and a friend of Joseph Brodsky's, came in with a friend to spend the evening at the Russian Samovar. I met Elizabeth about 20 years ago at one of Joseph’s Birthday parties. We talked about how many lives Brodsky had touched and how he brought together so many people. Elizabeth’s friend turned out to be a professor at a Hebrew University so the conversation turned to Israel. I came up with a bleak prediction that once the situation becomes desperate, the Israelites would use the bomb and that will be the beginning of a world-wide nuclear war and the end of the world as we know it. It started in Jerusalem and it will end in Jerusalem. This is my pessimistic view of the apocalypse. I wish it would not happen. In the meantime, let’s enjoy this life and that’s what we did clinking glasses at the Russian Samovar.

Opera Night at the Russian Samovar

Yesterday, a few young people came to RS to taste our icy infused-vodkas on a hot summer night. They happened to be graduates of Julliard School of Music and began singing many world-famous opera arias. Our regular customers asked for more and more and couldn’t stop applauding. What a great night and just one of many special spontaneous performances at the restaurant. One of the singers, Irina Dubovoy, especially impressed the crowd when she sang a few of Calman’s melodies followed by Bizet's Carmen. They were all surprised that our pianist, Alexander Izbitser, knew all of the operas and sang together with them in the original languages of the arias.

Death of a Dissident

Alex Goldfarb just published a book called “Death of a Dissident”. I’ve known Goldfarb for 30 odd years. In Russia he was a dissident, in America he joined the faculty of Biology at Columbia University and showed himself to be a capable scientist. Some years later, he became a capable administrator in charge of the Soros’ foundation, where he helped Russian scientists who survived the terribly difficult years of Perestroyka. He also organized American doctors who volunteer their services to fight TB in Russian prisons. He helped Alexandre Litvinenko and his family defect to England. Litvinenko was a former Russian FSB agent who was rather knowledgeable of many secrets of the Russian Security Services. In the book, Goldfarb asserts that Litvinenko was poisoned by FSB agents in an act of revenge for divulging of Russian State Secrets. He supposedly wrote the book with Marina Litvinenko, but it’s clear that Goldfarb wrote most of it, if not all, by himself. The book is written in English, showing Goldfarb to be a highly educated and intelligent person. A week or so ago, Alex and Marina Litvinenko were guests of Charlie Rose, arguably the best TV show host. Goldfarb was very impressive and answered all the questions with precision and agility. Last Thursday he came to the restaurant and brought two books. One was for me and the other for the well known Russian-American journalist Vladimir Kozlovsky. I don’t know what Alex wrote for Kozlovsky, but on the book he signed for me he wrote: to Roman Kaplan – owner of a haunt where dissidents and spies hang out.