Male Strip Club Has City Red Hot

City officials concerned with the moral character of Moscow's main street have declared war on a male strip club located meters away from the mayor's office.

As a result, the club - called Krasnaya Shapochka, or Little Red Riding Hood - has painted over its giant window displays, which depicted muscular male strippers and were deemed offensive and even perversive by municipal officials.

The club on Tverskaya Ulitsa, which opened about a year ago, claims to be the only venue in town specializing in male striptease, and boasts a wealthy clientele.

The driving force behind attempts to get rid of the suggestive displays is Moscow City Duma Deputy Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov. He was not available for comment Friday, and his aides declined to comment.

The Moscow Times, however, obtained a copy of a letter from Moskvin-Tarkhanov to the head of Moscow's central administrative district calling for the removal of the photos.

In the letter, Moskvin-Tarkhanov complains that the historical building now occupied by the club - which once "housed the famous Filippov's bakery and the Lady Smith cafe, opened to commemorate the Boer war" - now displays pictures of men with "massive loins thrusting toward passersby."

The letter also says the pictures in the windows reflect the "intentional perversion of neighborhood youth."

Moskvin-Tarkhanov writes of a number of complaints from local residents, and one of the letter's arguments is that the giant photos should be removed because residents are under some "wild assumptions" linking the club with "certain members of the city and district administration" - including the Prosecutor General's Office and the Federation Council, located nearby.

According to Krasnaya Shapochka's director, Vladimir Trubnikov, the club's problems began almost immediately after it opened.

"People complained about noise. So we had to measure it, and it proved to be totally in compliance with official [noise pollution] standards," Trubnikov said. "Then we had similar problems with parking."

The "picture problem" hit the club about a month ago. According to Trubnikov, Moskvin-Tarkhanov sent his impassioned plea to all officials even remotely related to outdoor displays, from municipal agencies to the federal Anti-Monopoly Ministry.

Worried about the letter's impact, Trubnikov ordered four of the club's five display windows painted over several days before the city issued its formal recommendation that he do so Thursday.

The dispute between the club and the city is not over. Various municipal agencies have sent the club nonbinding instructions on getting rid of the displays, but Trubnikov planned to meet with city officials Monday in order to discuss the issue further.

"I still hope that in the end we will keep our photographs. So far I have not even started to think about any alternatives to the displays we have now," Trubnikov said.

Tverskaya Ulitsa has long been the center of some dubious forms of entertainment. Over the past decade, several notoriously seedy nightclubs and flocks of prostitutes have become trademarks of the city's main street.

But according to the Kommersant daily, it was the switch to suggestive images of men rather than women that upset Moskvin-Tarkhanov.

"The people are deeply offended by ?€¦ four-meter men in helmets and briefs," the paper quoted Moskvin-Tarkhanov as saying in its Friday edition. "I'm not against the club. Ladies with titties are a sight people have already gotten used to, but guys in briefs are an outrage."