16TONS

At Presnenski Val 6/1 in central Moscow, 16TONS brings together a restaurant, a club and an English pub. The pub started welcoming customers on April 16, 1996, with a brewery on site; a stage and dance floor were added upstairs when the nightclub opened on October 30, 1997. Sergey Deev and a fellow student at the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology founded the venue. Its name refers to Merle Travis’s song “Sixteen Tons,” about miners’ hard labour, which is played before concerts. The pub is one of Moscow’s oldest English pubs still in operation.

Guitar bands were the focus when 16TONS began presenting live music, and concerts and parties feature Russian and international performers. The venue gives its capacity as about 500; the concert hall figure is 400, with verandas for 30 and 20 people. British firm Andy Thornton Architectural Antiques designed the first-floor interior. The brewery has worked since the venue opened and makes three patented beers: Svetloye Spetsialnoye, Krasnoye Osoboye and Extra Stout.

An Ohm sound system and a 16-channel Allen & Heath mixing console were installed in the upstairs club during its early years. Occulti Music has promoted events there. Among performers at 16TONS are Goldie and The Fall, alongside drum and bass artists Impish and Cnof.