● Radisson Blu Royal (Tsvetnoy Boulevard) - Lux hotel slotted within the restored neo-classical Hotel Ukrania -- one of the infamous Stalin-era Seven Sisters skyscrapers.

● Lucien (Tsvetnoy Boulevard) - From the great Siberian plains to the goulash archipelago, this classical resto has Russia covered.

Conde Nast recently sent three writers to Moscow armed respectively with one BlackBerry of the Bold variety, one iPhone, and one guidebook courtesy of Conde Nast's Insider Guides, then gave them all a bunch of tasks to complete. The clear winner? The writer, Sara Tucker, outfitted with the old school ink and paper guidebook. The guidebook outperformed the digital versions by a mile. The major reason the guidebook won in this case was that Moscow is not set up for any kind of high-speed anything online, and WiFi cafes are few and far between.

The high and mighty plans of the Opium Group out of Miami to create and sustain a high-end club in the Mezmor Building space are officially dead. Mark Baker has left M2. I won't get into a he-said she-said debate on what happened. Mark told me "that the split was mutually agreed upon and that Joey Morrissey -- a friend for 20 years -- and myself still maintain a great relationship." Mark believes his run at Mansion, now M2, "has been a great success"; through impossible times the club has survived, and most felt that was impossible. But I suspect that surviving, although a noble ambition, is not what they had in mind a little more than a year ago. The big dreams of a circus-like atmosphere where the beautiful people celebrated the sweet sounds of success while popping bottles to the sweet sounds of world-class DJs proved fleeting. Yes, there were many moments where the Euro set had a blast, but downtown didn't understand it and mostly didn't come. The dream of a mixed bag of the best of every class in New York was never achieved.

The Wealth Bulletin compiled a top ten list for the priciest suites in the world, Luxist chimed in, and here are the final tallies:

10. Brook Penthouse, Claridges, London: $10,000 per night.
9. The Imperial Suite, Park Hyatt-Vendome, Paris: $15,500 per night.
8. The Royal Suite, Four Seasons George V, Paris: $16,000 per night.
7. The Ritz-Carlton Suite, The Ritz-Carlton, Moscow: $16,500 per night.
6. Royal Armleder Suite, Le Richemond, Geneva: $17,500 per night.

New York Nightlife Association prez and Los Dados owner David Rabin on re-opening the legendary Lotus, commuting to Moscow, and suckering his partner into doing his other job.

What are you up to these days? We are re-doing the Lotus space, though we don’t know what to call it yet. We’re doing it with Mark [Birnbaum] from Tenjune. Just yesterday we got the plans for Double Seven in New York, which we’re trying to re-open on Gansevoort Street near Los Dados by the end of the year. I don’t know if I believe it myself ...

While there are artists like Paul Eng spreading the good word about Russia abroad, and radical collectives like Voina never backing down from creating public dissent domestically, the nation's art scene is getting a helping hand from Daria Zhukova -- celebrity girlfriend of billionaire Roman Abramovich. Zhukova has transformed a former bus depot into the Russian equivalent of New York's MoMA with the posthumous assistance of architect Konstantin Melnikov. And if the Garage Gallery's (as this space is called) showing of illustrious heavyweights Ilya and Emilia Kabakov's works don't impress, a display of Russia's pilfered art spoils from its recent Georgian invasion may do it for you instead.

From the land that gave us the Kremlin, vodka, and the faux-Sapphic pop stylings of Tatu comes the subject of photographer Paul Eng's latest exhibit. Titled "Russians," the show features artwork commissioned by Russian clients as well more personal pieces, all of which aim to pick apart the simplistic distillation of Russian culture and present something more authentic and three-dimensional.

He's literally run the gamut from shirtless busboy at Studio 54 (identified in Anthony Haden-Guest's book on the disco as "Pecker 54") to white-tie hotelier to the stars. Richie Notar is a hometown boy made good.

Point of Origin: I was born in Jamaica, Queens. I used to play ball on the Trumps' lawn, and now I know all of them socially. When I was about 15, the owners of Studio 54 -- Ian Schraeger and Steve Rubell -- had a place called Enchanted Garden in Queens, their foray into the club business ... a little-known fact. They wanted to upgrade from guidos to celebrities. A friend asked if I wanted to hang out there with him for, like, $2 an hour, so we were washing dishes! This little guy comes in and says, “What are you doing?” and I said “I'm washing dishes.” And he said, “I like your style, so you should come out and meet the people.” It was Steve Rubell.