Paris Glorious Cafe

Paris café is not just a place where one comesacross Paris in search for a better place. Picasso was
to drink a cup of coffee. In fact, one doesn't actuallythe first to choose the place, and he was followed by
come there - the word "come" presupposes aChagall, Vlamink, Kandinsky, Leger and Gijom Apolliner.
short-time action. People drop in at a café to goThere was always hot soup, coal, and warm stoves.
on living… The story began at times when ParisThe atmosphere was free and easy, although there
was not such a well-appointed city. In 1920th peoplewere some rules: the ladies were not allowed to take
came to a café to warm themselves attractedtheir hats off and to smoke. On the other hand, they
by warm stoves. They sat there infinitely with a singlewere allowed to dance on the tables.
cup of coffee and a book, sketchbook and a pencil orHaim Sutin painted his best works at the cafe (at that
in a company of a good friend or a beloved. Little bytime they cost a cup of coffee, nowadays they are
little formed small companies of habitués, manysold for millions of dollars). Modigliani painted portraits of
of whom went down in history. Some due to theirall the habitués of La Rotonde. His portraits cost
indisputable talents and some due to the fact of theirnothing to friends and hot dinner of a shot of vodka
acquaintance with a genius.for the other visitors of the café. Jean Cocteau
French café is organized like a theater. Thedistributed poems, making fun of the snobs, which
tables are turned towards the street, in summer theywere destined to enter the history…
are placed right at the pavement. Each of the ParisWhen Paris welcomed "Russian seasons", legendary
cafes has its own history and can boast of its ownDyagilev and Nizhinsky came to La Rotonda to order
visitors. But one of them has more reasons to bemusic to young composers (Debussy, Prokofiev,
proud of its history than the others. This is theStravinsky, Milhaud, Satie). Young poets Max Voloshin,
legendary La Rotonde, located at Montparnasse, 105.Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Mayakovsky were
Nowadays it is a luxury restaurant, and there's noalso frequent guests of La Rotonde.
bitter, hungry and smoky atmosphere of bohemiaIn 1903 Gabrielle Chanel sang there folk songs to the
there…it was over 90 years ago when thisrapture of the audience. This is at La Rotonde, where
café opened its doors to public. Nobody thoughtshe met her rich sponsor with whom she would live at
that it is destined to become one of the most famousaristocratic Vichi and become a fashion queen, a
places in Paris as well as in the whole Europe.personification of style.
At that time anise vodka cost 5 sous, a breakfast - 10Between the two wars the café was favoured
sous. Low prices attracted the Bohemia. Besides theyby the writers, such as Hemingway, Breton, Fitzgerald.
got tired of the Montmartre and started wondering