It's Ladies' night at one of Moscow's more affordable bars and Masha and her Mum are enjoying a strip show. "I like it, very nice boys", Masha enthuses. Inside the gyrating bar nobody is thinking about the soul sapping economic crisis. So is this fevered partying a nihilistic rage before the dying of the light? It's not for Russia's artists. For them the crisis didn't really matter - they had nothing to loose in the first place. Every weekend musician Boris Raskanikov turns his flat into a club. He loves the troubles. "People stopped having illusions, they've started to live, love & feel!" It's the clubs that used to host Moscow's criminals that are going out of business, their prices are too much for even them now. In the last place on earth you'd expect people to be having fun it seems those with the least are enjoying themselves the most.

Produced by ABC Australia