Gay Culture in Warsaw : Crazy as a Pole (2)

Feb. 08 2014

by Jan Le Bris de Kerne

After having introduced you to Warsaw and its cultural richness, we now enter the heart of the matter: where to go out in the Warsaw gay night? What does it look like? What do we see?

18 years ago, the Fantom was born, the first gay club with a bar, store and darkroom. It's a journey into the past. A place as fossilized, precious, last trace of an era that we hope is over. It's a sepia image of the gay world before the birth of the gay world. The entrance is located after a gate leading to a Palace, between two courtyards, in a kind of dark tunnel, covered with tags and posters. On the right, a scrap metal door, hardly visible, which timidly bears the inscription Fantom. Quite a program.

In Warsaw there are also a lot of gay saunas and dark-rooms, much more recent, which are scattered all over the city: Heaven Sauna, with a joyful and lively atmosphere, Vero Club, Wild Club. The Toro, a nightclub named after its creators Tomek and Romek, a couple for 25 years. This large space, like many European clubs, has hosted more than 2,000 partygoers who participated in the Europride in 2010.

The Toro

The city also offers tiny, discreet and cute bars, such as the Lodi Dodi, where you can squeeze 20 people around a round counter.

And above all the big clubs, true to the high festive reputation of the Eastern cities. The Candy Club(where the young man who illustrates this file was photographed, editor's note) in the first place. A beautiful place where the chic and colourful birds of the night flock. Because in Warsaw, there is no party place without a party: strange, isn't it?

The Candy Club

Piotr and Sebastian have been a couple for three years and run a communication agency. They created the Candy Club in the summer of 2012, after having successfully worked at Hunter's, itself ex-Utopia (which was the big trendy gay nightclub, in Varsa). The Candy Club is a vast modern space, with purple LED lights, screaming screens that spit out colorful videos, or making off photo shoots with the most famous "male models" of the planet. A small VIP area, at the end of the runway. A long bar where lined up and all dressed in black shirts, pretty barmen who cheat the slow hours of the beginning by juggling with the bottles ("flair").

The crowd does not become crowded until 1 am, although the club opens at 10 pm. At the entrance, the "selektor", Krysztof, is friendly and well mannered. He says hello with a smile and the selection is really not prohibitive. Go as you are, the effort you are used to make to go to the club will be enough to cross the cordon.

Here people drink without looking drunk, and dance. But then dance! There is everything: beautiful people, as well as ordinary people. Muscular bears with checked shirts, as well as the eternal modasses with a sparkling eye and a hard tooth. 80% gay, 20% straight and the legendary "fag girls" glamorous, blonde, shimmering, impressive. If you get tired, very comfortable, large and welcoming sofas are laid out next to the dance floor, with tables and ashtrays. There is no gloom in this Polish gay life. We always oscillate between simplicity, worldliness and alternativity.

Glam, another big gay club, is a good example of this civilized alternative trend. The door is hardly visible from the outside, because there is no glittery logo as the name Glam might suggest. For any mention of the presence of a gay and lesbian club (you will see that "lesbian" has its importance), we note the presence of two sturdy dvârapâlas and a young man with very long uncombed hair, like metal rock. At the bottom, we can meet the DA. He should absolutely have been a model, as he is tall, thin, dressed in the latest fashion and as his face evokes the catwalk of fashion men. He speaks quickly, without much of a smile, a sign of a sharp mind that doesn't bother with obsequious detours or ceremonies. Superfluous.

The Glam

Here again, they open early, but as always, no one in sight before 11pm. The first to enter are the lesbians. Young and in pack, fems or butches, they dance between them and laugh to the bursts. About twenty, hardly older than twenty years. Igor makes a point of underlining that it is out of question for him to operate a some segregation between lesbians and gays. He makes it almost a political doctrine. The barman of a rather spectacular beauty (although mainstream), contemplates with his blue eye the arrival of the customers. The music is commercial, house, pop.

At Glam, all the famous Polish singers and other drag creatures known throughout the country have appeared. Even the famous Zombie Boy, a fully tattooed model who appears in a video clip of Lady Gaga and other Armani ads. That's how attractive the club is. Everything is painted black, in that not-so-fresh paint that looks very "student house" or penniless university fraternity, with its share of unhooked cables hanging all over the place. Antithesis! The toilets don't close and to flush the toilet, you have to press on big screws that replace what used to be a push button. Trash! It is obvious that the LGBT youth born after the fall of the Berlin Wall has taken up residence in this not pretentious and fun temple.

The list of LGBT places is long: we can add The Garage, the City and its drag queens, the Galeria, a kind of dark and smoky tavern, another very popular world, with crazy Karaoke nights...

Warsaw is obviously a little-known capital city that you absolutely must get to know. Just like Lisbon a few years ago (and of a comparable dimension), it carries all sorts of unfounded clichés (yes, it is nice and warm in Poland outside winter and no, Poles are not irredeemable alcoholics). No one would have imagined 5 years ago to spend a successful vacation in Lisbon. Today, the French are flocking there on vacation, buying apartments and living there.

The Galeria

Warsaw is still a discreet place, a secret well kept by those who have fallen in love with it. And in love with the Poles, beautiful, tall, educated and warm. A few months ago, a survey officialized this widespread feeling that there are definitely great things to do in Warsaw, by electing these two capitals, along with Lisbon, as the "coolest cities in Europe". You only have to spend a few days there to get a deep feeling that gay life in Warsaw is booming, on its way up, and this energy of renewal, of youth, is said to be priceless.

Check out the blog of our contributor Jan Le Bris de Kerne, Varsoviegay, with the complete and exhaustive gay and cultural guide of Warsaw: varsoviegay.blogspot.com