Perhaps that is why they bundle up in an assortment of furs and wools every weekend to foxtrot under the snow, sleet, rain -- or whatever the elements have to offer at Sokolniki Park's Retro Dance club. For 500 rubles -- a little less than a loaf of bread -- they can dance the afternoon away.
"Welcome to tuxedo junction," Arnold Volyntsev said, gesturing to the open-air dance club he started 10 years ago for the silver-haired crowd. "A lot of romances have been born right here. We've even had one marriage."
Volyntsev first got the idea for Retro Dance when he was passing by a disco pavilion in Sokolniki, a vast park in northeast Moscow. "Some of the older people were standing along the sidelines and swaying to the music, and they could really move," he said. It was just a matter of time before he started Retro Dance for swingers over 50.
"It doesn't matter what your age is," said Volyntsev. "The important thing is to have a place where you can go and feel in your own element -- hear your own poetry."
Since then the group has been gathering every Saturday and Sunday year round -- taking a short break in November when the weather is too miserable for even the youngest at heart.
"This program is unique," said Volyntsev. "Some of our dancers travel from as far as 100 kilometers away."
But it is not the romance that keeps Volyntsev going, but the music. He lovingly prepares the hit parade each week from his personal assortment of some 1500 records. "I've been collecting records for over 40 years," said Volyntsev, who claims to have met jazz greats Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong.
On one recent afternoon the retro dancers took a long ride on the Chatanooga Choo Choo, as Volyntsev dedicated the entire program to Glenn Miller. But on any given day the program may swing from "Roll out the Barrel," to a balalaika ballad.
"The music may change, but it is the spirit that is important," Volyntsev said. "It makes them feel young again."
Just as the music varies, so do the dancers. Some are decidedly too old to twist, shuffling around the fenced-in arena to their own internal metronome. But many of the dancers at the Retro Club are inspiringly agile, gracefully changing tempos from the music of the big bands to a romantic Russian ballad without missing a beat.
Some show up with partners. Others don't. Galina and Nadya danced the first set together before they stood out on the sidelines for a spell to catch their breath. But it was not long before an older gentleman sidled up to them with his shy friend in tow.
"Would you like to dance?" he asked Galina, gesturing that Nadya could pair up with his tongue-tied buddy.
Galina and Nadya glanced at each other sideways before their lips turned up in a consenting smile.
"We'd love to," Galina replied, taking her partner's arm and heading for the dance floor.
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