NEWS

Anna Sulimina

The "Opera" nightclub - a former Mecca for Moscow's so-called "golden youth" - was destroyed by fire in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The blaze, which killed one security guard, took place when the venue was closed but still forced the evacuation of a nearby apartment block containing 250 people.

Staff at the club hinted at foul play, suggesting that rival promoters or even disgruntled ex-employees may have been behind the destruction, which wrecked 1,200 square metres of the rented premises on Ulitsa Tryokhgorny Val in the Krasnaya Presnya district.

Natalya Tikhonova, the club's PR manager, told The Moscow News: "We've never had any problems with people coming to the club, so we might think some of our rivals are to blame [for the fire]."

But a former worker in the club, speaking on condition of anonymity, hinted that strained relations between staff and management could have prompted a revenge attack while the building was out of action.

"Several barmen left after not being tipped by the club managers on previous weekend," he said. "I do not know the real reason for the fire, but the owners were often at odds with the staff, and a couple of weeks ago the security team was fired."

Tikhonova denied that there were any special problems between staff and management, saying staff in the nightclub sector tended to change rapidly.

"There is nothing special about people leaving - the stresses and strains of working at night are really high, not all can bear it," she said.  

The possibility of an arson attack being arranged to spark an insurance scam was quickly doused by the management.

"We had new dancefloor around the club and very expensive sound and video equipment set up, said Tikhonova. "We opened a new up-to-date recording studio just a few days ago.
"The club and its office premises are completely destroyed and the loses are great, do not know about its future yet."

With memories of the inferno at Perm's "Khromaya Loshchad" club, which killed 155 people, still painfully fresh, the incident immediately raised fresh fears about fire safety in Russia.
But staff and managers of the club rejected claims from the fire service that it was on a safety blacklist at the time of Tuesday's blaze.

After a wave of spot checks in the aftermath of the Perm disaster it was widely reported that Opera was among the clubs forced to shut down - something denied by Tikhonova.

"The club wasn't shut in December over any fire safety check-ups, despite what has been reported, because everything was ok," she added.

Staff at the club backed up that claim, with our source agreeing: "The clubs fire safety was good - staff had several emergency training sessions following a minor fire on the second floor of the club in the end of last year and everything was fixed after that."

The fire started at around 3 am on Tuesday, March 9, when the club was empty apart from three security guards.

Thirty firefighting teams were called to tackle the blaze, which ripped through the three-storey building after the roof collapsed.

Opera was one of the most famous party places for Russia's rich - and wannabe rich - with table reservations costing a cool 20,000 roubles.

Resident DJs Vengerov & Fedorov became stars of the local clubbing scene, while the venue was noted for bringing in big name international stars from Guru Josh to the Scorpions.

It also became the venue of choice for Russia's football stars to unwind, with Lokomotiv forward Dmitry Sychyov giving regular DJ sets and members of the national team being regular guests.