New Russians are social animals; they squeeze business and pleasure together the way Russian drivers squeeze five lanes out of four. The office is full of petty distractions: meetings, phone calls, endless details. Billion-dollar deals await the cool hours of the evening. There is a Russian tradition that you can't trust or do business with a man until you have been drunk together. Food, vodka, money, they go hand in hand.

More astonishing than the grooming of men is the transformation of women. In the few years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian women have metamorphosed from hefty builders of socialism to tennis stars who stand a head taller than the general population. During the day, clones of Maria Sharapova move from spa to spa. At night, they go from club to club in the giddy hope of meeting their own millionaire.

While a GQ deputy director named Sergei gave us a tour, Lana described the buy list of a New Russian: "a flat in Moscow, a town house in Belgravia, a villa in St.-Tropez, a ski chalet in Courchevel, foreign schools for his children, foreign banks for his money, and, finally, a private jet to fly away in."

This is a sore point in Russia. Even in the worst days under Stalin there was a general sense of classlessness. People didn't have money, they had perks: a larger ration of sausage, an extra week at a sanatorium, access to foreign films. The New Russians have emerged in a cloudburst of dollars, and they are, in the eyes of most people, thieves. Their lifestyle is both envied and abhorred, and since Moscow is the center, there are imitations of its club scene across the country. It is fair to say that for many young Russians, clubs define the night.

Sergei described the clubbing schedule: 10 to 12 is for pre-party socializing in the restaurant, 12 to 4 for partying in the clubs, 4 to 6 for post-party cooling off. He informed me that when Mickey Rourke is in Moscow, he parties at GQ.

I can imagine Rourke partying until dawn. I imagine myself in bed, my head on a pillow.

We left GQ and hit a club that was launching either a new BMW or a new vodka or both. Then to a club in Gorky Park for a more democratic crowd where, besides playing Whac-A-Mole with a rubber mallet, you can walk on a man-made beach. Nice place.

Nonetheless, I felt that I was missing something. What was the very best club in Moscow? Which was the most fantastic?

"Well," Lana said, "there's Diaghilev."

"What makes it so popular?"

"No one can get in."