Replacement of St. Valentine – Newspaper Kommersant No. 31 (7476) dated 20.02.2023

In the past week, social life has gone full circle. It was as if she was looking for herself in the place where once there was a celebration of marketing concepts on the occasion of Valentine’s Day.

I don’t want to look back for a long time, if only because it brings pain, but still, on February 14 last year, social life was still completely normal. And the calendar around Valentine’s Day was full of dinners and cocktails, mostly from global jewelry brands. Those who did not have on their shoulders the general’s epaulettes of secular troops were content with the activities of cosmetic brands, also global. In this almost full year that has passed since denormalization, we have already realized that domestic brands are demonstrating the maximum readiness to replace all these activities. However, as we approach February 24, it becomes quieter in the stands, as they say: no one wants to stand next to the anniversary of the start of the NWO.

So, on February 14, only the charity dinner “Special Person” of the Pravmir Foundation, headed by Tatyana Apatova, fell. The Foundation has been operating since 2015 and has a remarkable breadth of views: it provides assistance to people of any age and with any disease. Over the years, the fund has attracted 1.2 billion rubles, but it was the first time that it decided to go to dinner with an auction. The ambassador of the evening at the Carlton Hotel was Irina Khakamada, who addressed the audience with a short but energetic speech. Mrs. Khakamada refuted in one fell swoop the assertions of today’s fashionable specialists who call themselves differently, but with the same rapture, speak about the energy of money. “Money does not have any energy, but it can appear if the money is directed to help others,” Ms. Khakamada concluded her speech and immediately put her own book up for auction. The book was immediately sold for 600 thousand rubles, which pretty much amazed its author. Then the evening went on at a no less vigorous pace. Stepan Morozov and Natalya Tuzova, co-owner and general director of the distance sales company Yuvelirochka, unexpectedly became active participants in the auction. Moreover, it was Mrs. Tuzova who purchased the lot from the partner of the evening, the Leviev jewelry house. It seems that when we talk about the change of secular compositions and mean that instead of Elena Likhach or Mikhail Prokhorov, admins of Telegram channels will settle in secular life, we underestimate the depth of tectonic shifts a little.

Then there was a no less amusing change: an exhibition of contemporary art was opened for the first time in the closed club Noodome, and a restaurant was opened in the cultural center GES-2. The restaurant opened two nights in a row. First, the GT restaurant holding of Elina and Galaktion Tabidze invited the guests, then, as is customary now, the admin of the Ku-Ku telegram channel, Ksenia Korobeynikova. Her channel became the official media partner of the “Settings-3” exhibition. Since the lists of organizers overlapped, some guests actually went to dinner on two nights in a row. However, they can be understood – it is really tasty and beautiful, and the dinner menu was different. An active Gallery Association has come to Noodome to help members of this club see themselves as art collectors. On the evening of the presentation, Natalia Opaleva, Sofia Trotsenko, Dmitry Gutov and Alina Kryukova gave their eloquence to this task, at the request of the club and the association.

Evgenia Milova, columnist for Kommersant