Slavic Lit-Bars

Various Slavs of New York featured heavily in this week’s New York magazine roundup of lit-bars, “Bookish Boozing.” At the top of the list was Barbes (376 9th Street at Sixth Avenue, Park Slope), not exactly a Slavic spot, but home to Slavic Soul Party each Tuesday evening.

Similarly, number two on the list, Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery, between Bleecker and Houston) regularly hosts Slavic readings, particularly the Project Gorod series.

More directly, both KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street between Second and Third Avenues) and the Russian Samovar (256 West 52nd Street between Eighth Avenue and Broadway) fly the Slavic flag proudly.

On KGB Bar, New York writes: “Sundays bring fiction, Mondays poetry, and Tuesdays non-fiction. From Wednesday to Friday, you’ll hear everything from sci-fi to prize-winning journalism. The monthly ‘Drunken! Careening! Writers!’ limits each participating novelist/poet/hack to fifteen minutes and insists each work must have ‘at least one thing that makes people laugh.’”

And on the Samovar, “Sporadic readings take place in the upstairs room, where listeners gather around a large table and knock back exotically infused vodkas.”

Also on the list? Half King (505 West 23rd Street), Happy Ending (302 Broome Street), Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction (34 Avenue A), Pete’s Candy Store (709 Lorimer Street), and Rocky Sullivan’s (129 Lexington Avenue).

(Photo: UN Secretary of Staff, Mr. Mark Malloch Brown at KGB, by Julia Calfee for New York)