The Kremlin Cup is Moscow's place to be this week for world-class tennis -- and for celebrity-watching, business-dealing, fine Swiss cuisine and anything by Reebok.
Ostensibly, it is simply a stop on the international tennis tour, Moscow's only regular international caliber sporting event. But as a quintessentially new Russian spectacle, it is the place to see and be seen, a bizarre bazaar of commercialism, efficiency and professionalism.
Models in mini-skirts parade around corridors of corporate public relations booths at the Olympic Sports Center, advertising everything from beer to graphic design services, while event staff crackle instructions over Motorola walkie-talkies. And business cards change hands at the speed of a Yevgeny Kafelnikov forehand.
"This is kind of a symbol of where and how Russia might be as a country in a few years," Alexander Vainshtein, the tournament's managing director, said. "A lot of lights, a lot of colors, a lot of food."
The "VIP Village," catered by the five-star Swiss Tschuggen Grand Hotel, has been serving more than 1,200 meals a day to players and guests, from caviar to sumptuous sherbets, with preparation overseen by 10 chefs flown in from Switzerland and 20 Russian chefs. Clientele on Thursday night polished off 50 bottles of cognac, 100 bottles of vodka, not to mention other spirits, wine and beer galore, catering director Dino Scalmina said.
The posh touches are only for those who pay. Although general admission tickets were available for as little as 5,000 rubles during the week -- so that less well-heeled Russians could attend -- they did not allow access to the strip of commercial booths and the fancy fare to which premium ticket-holders were entitled. The box seats for the weekend are going for $75 to $150.
But if the event meets Western standards for hospitality and glitz, organizers are proud to say it is no longer predominantly Western-run. The Moscow office has taken over more operations this year from the tournament's New York and Zurich offices, and overall management is more than half Russian, Vainshtein said. In the past all major sponsors were foreign, but Moscow-based Inkombank is a leading patron this year, along with other Russian companies.
Lavish hospitality, professional touches and players' prize money -- $1.1 million, up from $300,000 last year -- do not come cheap. The Kremlin Cup's total price tag is $5.5 million, Vainshtein said, with the main sources of funding being corporate sponsorship and the government's Russian Sports Foundation. "It's good that government is interested in tennis, not in war," he said.
Eugene Scott, a former American Davis Cup player who is promoting the Kremlin Cup, said the event is "about, one, people wanting to entertain on a very unusual basis, or two, trying to get access to government leaders in an unintimidating environment."
The leaders have been out in force. Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Moscow Mayor Yury Luzkhov attended the first match and are expected to be at Sunday's finals. A host of Duma deputies and other government ministers have also filled the box seats and schmoozed and boozed in the VIP Village.
Besides politicians, regulars this week included Russian National Hockey League stars, back home during the North American league's lockout; actor Nikolai Karachentsev and folk dancer Makhmud Esambaev; and Edward Nixon, brother of the late American president -- keeping up a tradition started by a brother of former U.S. President George Bush who was at last year's tournament.
Sporting events are a favorite forum for entertaining business clients in the West, and companies here realize the potential appeal for Russian clients.
"They have had in the past no access to this kind of event," said Reiner Hartman, president of the Moscow office of the Germany company Ruhrgas, a tournament sponsor for the second straight year. "In New York, in Paris, in Monte Carlo, yes, but not here."
Ruhrgas invited a number of guests to the tournament this week, from Siberian production mangers to Russian Minister of Fuel and Energy Yury Shafranik, with an emphasis not on making deals, Hartman said, but on cultivating contacts. The company anted up $100,000 in sponsorship money, and Hartman stressed that "the investment is worth the return."
Other tournament sponsors aimed to make a name for themselves with high-visibility props, and high-octane models. Kremlyavskaya Vodka dressed someone up as a huge yellow tennis ball to bounce among the guests, while models clad in scanty yellow dresses and fur hats offered vodka to visitors milling through the main corridor.
Model Lena Stimmer, 18, said she enjoyed being at the tournament and seeing prominent spectators. But she added,"This dress is very bad."
Reebok, which outfitted the event staff, parked an automobile in the shape of a Reebok tennis shoe equipped with laces in front of its booth.
With all the razzmatazz down below, Sergei Tichomirov in the upper deck didn't forget what the tournament was supposed to be all about.
The 33-year-old construction worker came to see his favorite player, Russia's Kafelnikov, in action. And, he said, "because I like tennis, beer and to live well."
Ostensibly, it is simply a stop on the international tennis tour, Moscow's only regular international caliber sporting event. But as a quintessentially new Russian spectacle, it is the place to see and be seen, a bizarre bazaar of commercialism, efficiency and professionalism.
Models in mini-skirts parade around corridors of corporate public relations booths at the Olympic Sports Center, advertising everything from beer to graphic design services, while event staff crackle instructions over Motorola walkie-talkies. And business cards change hands at the speed of a Yevgeny Kafelnikov forehand.
"This is kind of a symbol of where and how Russia might be as a country in a few years," Alexander Vainshtein, the tournament's managing director, said. "A lot of lights, a lot of colors, a lot of food."
The "VIP Village," catered by the five-star Swiss Tschuggen Grand Hotel, has been serving more than 1,200 meals a day to players and guests, from caviar to sumptuous sherbets, with preparation overseen by 10 chefs flown in from Switzerland and 20 Russian chefs. Clientele on Thursday night polished off 50 bottles of cognac, 100 bottles of vodka, not to mention other spirits, wine and beer galore, catering director Dino Scalmina said.
The posh touches are only for those who pay. Although general admission tickets were available for as little as 5,000 rubles during the week -- so that less well-heeled Russians could attend -- they did not allow access to the strip of commercial booths and the fancy fare to which premium ticket-holders were entitled. The box seats for the weekend are going for $75 to $150.
But if the event meets Western standards for hospitality and glitz, organizers are proud to say it is no longer predominantly Western-run. The Moscow office has taken over more operations this year from the tournament's New York and Zurich offices, and overall management is more than half Russian, Vainshtein said. In the past all major sponsors were foreign, but Moscow-based Inkombank is a leading patron this year, along with other Russian companies.
Lavish hospitality, professional touches and players' prize money -- $1.1 million, up from $300,000 last year -- do not come cheap. The Kremlin Cup's total price tag is $5.5 million, Vainshtein said, with the main sources of funding being corporate sponsorship and the government's Russian Sports Foundation. "It's good that government is interested in tennis, not in war," he said.
Eugene Scott, a former American Davis Cup player who is promoting the Kremlin Cup, said the event is "about, one, people wanting to entertain on a very unusual basis, or two, trying to get access to government leaders in an unintimidating environment."
The leaders have been out in force. Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Moscow Mayor Yury Luzkhov attended the first match and are expected to be at Sunday's finals. A host of Duma deputies and other government ministers have also filled the box seats and schmoozed and boozed in the VIP Village.
Besides politicians, regulars this week included Russian National Hockey League stars, back home during the North American league's lockout; actor Nikolai Karachentsev and folk dancer Makhmud Esambaev; and Edward Nixon, brother of the late American president -- keeping up a tradition started by a brother of former U.S. President George Bush who was at last year's tournament.
Sporting events are a favorite forum for entertaining business clients in the West, and companies here realize the potential appeal for Russian clients.
"They have had in the past no access to this kind of event," said Reiner Hartman, president of the Moscow office of the Germany company Ruhrgas, a tournament sponsor for the second straight year. "In New York, in Paris, in Monte Carlo, yes, but not here."
Ruhrgas invited a number of guests to the tournament this week, from Siberian production mangers to Russian Minister of Fuel and Energy Yury Shafranik, with an emphasis not on making deals, Hartman said, but on cultivating contacts. The company anted up $100,000 in sponsorship money, and Hartman stressed that "the investment is worth the return."
Other tournament sponsors aimed to make a name for themselves with high-visibility props, and high-octane models. Kremlyavskaya Vodka dressed someone up as a huge yellow tennis ball to bounce among the guests, while models clad in scanty yellow dresses and fur hats offered vodka to visitors milling through the main corridor.
Model Lena Stimmer, 18, said she enjoyed being at the tournament and seeing prominent spectators. But she added,"This dress is very bad."
Reebok, which outfitted the event staff, parked an automobile in the shape of a Reebok tennis shoe equipped with laces in front of its booth.
With all the razzmatazz down below, Sergei Tichomirov in the upper deck didn't forget what the tournament was supposed to be all about.
The 33-year-old construction worker came to see his favorite player, Russia's Kafelnikov, in action. And, he said, "because I like tennis, beer and to live well."
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