Senses overcame sensibilities at Daddy's
The cool New Russians whose bulging biceps usually struggle for space in Armani or Versace cloth threw fashion to the wind and attired themselves in skimpy and lurid beachwear.
Once the swinging entry fee had been dispatched, everything inside was free, including the luxurious smorgasbord, cocktails and entertainment.
This last consisted of tropical dance moves from a tribal couple and a raunchy competition in which participants had to limbo dance, remove as much clothing as was humanly possible and bob for apples.
All good clean fun, which is more than can be said for the barstaff who, in the best politically incorrect traditions of wandering minstrels, had blacked their faces up with boot polish to resemble the "true" natives of the tropical islands their sandy bar was trying to emulate.
In a new occasional series in this section, revived as excitement levels in the town see fit, we start an investigation of St Petersburg's most profoundly boring events.
Scoring maximum points on the monotony meter is this week's anti-corrosion conference which in probably unexciting fashion drags out its look at metal protection over four whole days.
Beaten into second place was a, shall we say, comprehensive look at Russian heraldry in the Mariinsky Palace last Thursday which sounded reasonably interesting until the introductory lecture (state symbols in Russia past and present) started running over an hour with supplementary time-wasting provided by the ubiquitous annoying old man whose military propaganda, cunningly disguised as questions, pushed our poor correspondent over the edge and into the hallowed confines of the palace which proved infinitely more thrilling.
By contrast, the long-awaited sortie of the ultimate Beatles encyclopedia, a labor of love by philologist-scientist team Andrey Ponomarenko and Nikolay Kozlov, saw the city's strong pro-Liverpool faction in strong voice and to happy effect.
There to fete the publication of the book, several times rebuffed by less enlightened printing houses, was celebrated radio rock critic Guninsky whose customary habit of mumbling into his beard made his comments difficult to understand, though the general vibe was appeciative.
Also there to congratulate the authors on producing this dual dictionary and encyclopedia was resident fanatic Kolya Vasin who hopes to build a John Lennon Temple of Love to accommmodate all the many sixties lovers in St Petersburg.
He commented that the large text was a fitting tribute to a group who had created 40 years of kindness and love, and was the first such book in Russian to have no mistakes, though he added there were a couple of "subjective moments."
One of those was undoubtedly the at times over-literal translations, but the book is still a fairly amazing phenomenon in a country where for so long talk of any Western group was forbidden.
Grab yourself a copy in main bookshops around the city for 90,000 roubles ($18.75.)
Easter is a time for egg-fondling
As the sun shone and the birds sang outside, inside the hotel artists finished off gorgeously decorated man-made eggs, while spring lambs and chicks were exhibited and bunny-shaped objects were everywhere to be seen.