When I arrived in Moscow in October 2003, many of my friends from Germany and New York followed my new life in the Russian capital with great interest. For most of them, Moscow was an unknown entity – a mix of curiosity and concern. They couldn’t help but wonder what had drawn me there, aside from perhaps the Bolshoi ballerinas.
At the time, social media wasn’t really my thing, and to avoid answering the same questions repeatedly, I started a blog on WordPress. This Moscow blog quickly gained popularity, not only among my friends but also with many other readers curious about life in the city.
Three years later, I received an email from a friend who was setting up several blogs for stern.de and was looking for authors. While there was no payment involved, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to write for one of Germany’s largest news websites – after all, Stern is a well-known magazine.
I’ll never forget my first phone call with the managing director of stern.de. I was visiting Germany at the time, sitting in my mother’s car after she had picked me up from the airport. The conversation was brief, and I was surprised at how much creative freedom I was given. No editor was assigned to oversee the project, and I guessed that blogs weren’t a high priority back then. At the end of the call, I asked what I should write about. “People aren’t really interested in Moscow,” the managing director said. “Statistics show that topics about sex or animals perform best. Ideally, you should write about sex with animals.” Silence. After a pause, he added, “I know, it’s sad. But that’s just how it is.”
And so, I began writing about sex and other unique experiences – from my past and my current life in Moscow. After three years, I discontinued the blog, but you can now find the articles here on my website.
During my time writing for stern.de, a major Berlin publisher approached me with an offer to write a book. However, they specified that while they would publish and distribute the book, they wouldn’t promote it. This didn’t sit well with me, and I lost interest. A year later, a literary agent reached out to me, and two years after that, I signed a contract with Randomhouse for Heyne Verlag. In 2013, my book Fucking Moskau was finally published.
I want to take a moment to reflect on the mistakes I made with my first book, Fucking Moskau, and my tendency to be overly compliant with the publisher. I trusted that the professionals at the publishing house had more experience and knew what they were doing. However, looking back, I’m dissatisfied with the edits, the restructuring, and even the cover. The publisher pushed for more explicit sex and detailed storytelling, while my vision was to create a collection of short stories about my party life in Moscow. Sex was meant to play a supporting role, with detailed depictions only when they were crucial to the narrative.
Originally, my book was like a well-marbled Kobe Wagyu steak—a balance of “meat” and “fat.” The “meat” represented the lifestyle stories, while the “fat” represented the sex tales. Of course, the fat adds flavor and gives the steak its unique character, but no one wants to consume only fat. Even as I wrote, I found the idea of overemphasizing sex off-putting. Nevertheless, the publisher decided to separate the meat from the fat: one-third lifestyle stories at the beginning, followed by two-thirds of sex. Predictably, this approach didn’t sit well with most readers. To make matters worse, some of the best stories—according to the publisher herself—were cut entirely.
As a newcomer, I was still grateful to have been published by a renowned house like Randomhouse. So, I kept quiet and accepted their decisions. Financially, the book was successful, which was some consolation.
In 2023, the rights to my book reverted to me as the contract expired. With the onset of the war in Ukraine, Moscow has lost its allure—not just for me but for many others. I left the city and have clearly distanced myself from Russia. However, I want to document my experiences: the backstories from New York, Paris, and Berlin that inspired the book, the unedited stories in their proper order, the outtakes that didn’t make it into the book, and new material that could have formed the basis for Fucking Moskau 2. My first book only covers my first seven years in Moscow, but the following twelve years were equally eventful, culminating in the bitter end of 2022.
One final note: I’ve often been asked if much of the content in my book was fabricated or exaggerated—even by other expats in Moscow who could have had similar experiences. Let me make this clear: everything in the book happened exactly as I described it. I only changed names and locations to protect privacy and adjusted the timeline for better readability.
If you shy away from adventure because of the potential consequences, you’ll never experience it. I often took the extra step—not for you or the book, but for myself and my life experience. And, of course, for the fun of it. I share these stories not to boast, but to entertain and connect with you.
Enjoy reading!
Yours,
Chris Helmbrecht
Victor picks me up from the airport. “Welcome to Moscow, the city of sin,” he says. For two hours, we drive through bleak suburbs full of concrete blocks. The closer we get to the center, the nicer the buildings, the flashier the cars—Ladas alongside luxury vehicles with flashing lights. When we hit traffic, our driver veers onto the sidewalk. A woman with a stroller jumps aside. I’m shocked. Victor just shrugs: “Time is money.” Welcome to a world that plays by its own rules.
The morning after, we lie next to each other, exhausted from a night filled with passion, music, and dancing. It was a transgression, a forbidden adventure that briefly united us like Bonnie and Clyde—honest and free from expectations. She rests in my arms, seeking comfort, while I wonder if she could be the one. But thoughts of a shared future quickly fade, as we both know there is only the here and now. Every moment with her feels like a stolen second I want to hold onto before reality catches up with us again.
An evening at an exclusive sex party in Moscow – driven by curiosity, I follow a friend’s invitation into a world that is both bizarre and fascinating. Amid high heels, collars, and unexpectedly profound conversations with the hostess Svetlana, a woman as passionate as she is charming, I immerse myself in a game of desire, power, and taboos. As the lines between freedom and control blur, I reflect on longing, fantasies, and the extraordinary stories that connect people. And in the end, one realization remains: sometimes life surprises you in the strangest ways.