In New York, the legendary Russian restaurant went bankrupt

Russian Samovar, New York's oldest and most famous Russian restaurant, owned for many years by dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and Nobel Prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky, has declared itself bankrupt, writes Air force.

Samovar opened in the summer of 1986 in a four-story old building on the corner of 52nd Street and 8th Avenue, in the heart of Manhattan's theater district. It stands between the Neil Simon Theater and the expensive Duke Ellington apartment building.

Once upon a time, on the site of Samovar there was a restaurant called Gillies, named after its owner Gilly Rizzo.

Rizzo grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey, and went to school with Frank Sinatra. “Sinatra was thin and ugly,” says former Leningrad resident Roman Kaplan, the soul and symbol of Samovar (but not its owner, because the official owner of the restaurant is his wife Larisa). “Rizzo stood up for him all the time.”

Subsequently, Sinatra lived in an apartment on the second floor of this building, which was then occupied by a Korean massage parlour, equipped with three showers and two Jacuzzis and regularly filling the Samovar with water. When Samovar expanded to the second floor in 1996, a VIP room was equipped there, called the Cigar Room. The author of the project was the artist Felix-Lev Zbarsky, whose father embalmed Lenin.

The second floor of the restaurant is famous for its collection of samovars, three of which were donated by Alexander Abdulov, Andrey Makarevich and Leonid Yarmolnik.

Contrary to myth, Samovar was not created by Baryshnikov and Brodsky, but by a team of eight Soviet emigrants, including Kaplan.

As usually happens, feuds soon broke out between the partners who chipped in $30 each, aggravated by the fact that the new restaurant had been dying for a long time, and some of them expected immediate profits and felt deprived. In addition, next to the Samovar was a garage, which was demolished and the Duke Ellington began to be erected. The scaffolding and noise didn't help matters.

But there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped. It came in 1988 at the wake of the brilliant writer Gennady Shmakov, who died of AIDS, which in those years devastated entire neighborhoods of Manhattan. A former Leningrader, esthete and balletomane, Shmakov was friends with Brodsky and Baryshnikov, who came to Samovar to honor his memory and there agreed to invest money in the restaurant. The house was purchased for $1,2 million, and the shares of the original partners were bought out one by one.

Old recipes tinctures

Samovar soon became famous for its liqueurs, which Kaplan began producing soon after its opening. He explains his initiative by saying that he quickly got drunk on pure vodka and was looking for a replacement for it. There were no Internet search engines in the late 80s, but Kaplan’s friend, second-hand book dealer Alik Rabinovich, came to the rescue and photocopied him several old recipes.

“Brodsky’s favorite vodka was cilantro and dill,” recalls Kaplan. “Misha Baryshnikov, on the contrary, liked cranberries.”

Along with the recipes for liqueurs, a wave of guests from the metropolis poured into Samovar, and the restaurant quickly became the New York equivalent of the Central House of Writers and the House of Cinema. “Come here, tired man,” wrote Vasily Aksenov in the samovar album. - And take a break from foreign quarrels. The whole world is a foreign land to us. Fatherland to us "Russian samovar".

At the white piano in the center of this “Stray Dog” of our days one could see Bulat Okudzhava and Zinovy ​​Gerdt and, on the other hand, Vitaly Churkin with Sergei Lavrov. Composer Alexander Zhurbin worked as a pianist at Samovar for several years, and actress Elena Koreneva was a waitress there.

In addition to Russian celebrities, among Samovar's regulars you might bump into the son of the late Shah of Iran, Katherine van den Heuvel - publisher of Nation, America's oldest left-wing magazine - and her Kremlinologist husband Steven Cohen, writer Philip Roth, actress Anjelica Huston or progressive publicist Susan Sontag.

“Susan Sontag only liked strong drinks,” Kaplan recalls. — I loved horseradish vodka and pepper vodka. Her favorite food, oddly enough, was lard cubes, which I also came up with.”

Poetry evenings are regularly held at Samovar, and on the second floor, which has not lived up to the expectations placed on it and is often empty, the emigrant theater rehearses and gives performances. Charitable events do not bring in much money that can cover Manhattan rent.

"Everything will be fine!"

According to court documents, the restaurant owed 199 thousand dollars to homeowner Alvin Nederlander Associates.

According to Samovar's lawyer Gabriel Del Virginia, the restaurant's debt arose mainly due to a conflict with Samovar Management Group Inc., headed by Alexander Agadzhanov. “Samovar” was temporarily given to his company for management.

When the restaurant decided to refuse Agadzhanov’s services in September 2016, she sued him for breach of contract.

Samovar filed a counterclaim, accusing the management company of allegedly deliberately stopping paying rent in order to “usurp” control over the restaurant, buy it and rewrite the lease contract for itself. The litigation continues.

Bankruptcy does not mean that Samovar will immediately cease to exist, just as Uncle Vanya, located two blocks away and owned by former Lenkom actress Marina Troshina, recently closed. If “Uncle Vanya” disappeared forever, then “Samovar” took advantage of Article 11 of the local bankruptcy law, which gives it protection from creditors and the opportunity to rebuild the business in order to stand on its feet and gradually pay off the debt.

“Everything will be fine!” says confidently Vlada von Schatz, daughter of Larisa Kaplan, who recently runs Samovar along with her eldest son Misha.