vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #159 / Social life / Reading article...

You could almost be in Milwaukie, Wisconsin, or Memphis, Tennessee, and you’re tempted to look around for big-bellied guys named Bubba and Don swilling pitchers of beer and getting up every so often to roll a ball down the alley.

Except that this bowling alley has fur hats and heaps of leather coats on the tables in back. And half the people here seem to be heaving the bowling balls as if they were shot puts.

Vladivostok’s first bowling alley has opened, and already its eight lanes are swarming with people, from novices laughing off a gutter ball, to a group of Koreans who seemed to throw strikes every other turn. It is proving to be a hit.

Operated by a Russian-Chinese joint-stock company, the Enkai Brothers Bowling Co., Ltd., is located in the Palace of Sports at 8 Batareynaya Street, across the street from the Dynamo Stadium. It is the first such facility in the Far East and only the third in Russia, after bowling alleys in Moscow and Irkutsk, said administrator Alexander Kurashkin, a man in a black pinstriped suit that seems to indicate that bowling is a very, very serious business. But those alleys elsewhere in Russia are not up to international standards, he said.

The eight-lane alley sits in a room about the size of a basketball court. The $500,000 remodeling job paid for high-class facility. The back wall is decorated with murals of wind surfers and skiers. TV screens over the alleys display the players’ scores and flash snazzy graphics. Roll the ball down either side of the alley, and the screen shows an animated ball zipping around a roller-coaster, then flashes the word “GUTTER!” If you’re skilled or lucky enough to knock down all 10 pins, the TV proclaims, “STRIKE!”

On a recent Saturday, the alley seemed to be a hit with those who showed up. Their style was indifferent, but the enthusiasm was there. One group of young guys took turns trotting up to the line, crouching, and hurling the ball to bounce down the alley. Elsewhere, a woman stood by the line, swung the ball back and forth, and sent it bounding into the gutter.

The alley makes a few concessions to the beginner. The electronic fault lines were turned off, so that when someone’s toe crossed the line, there wasn’t an embarrassing buzz to disqualify him. And there’s also Maxim Volkov.

Volkov, a young man in an Adidas jogging suit, offers a bit of instruction to novices (he even speaks some English). He says the unfamiliarity with the sport has led to some interesting variations.

“Some people would invent their own game,” he said. “One guy was throwing the ball, and another guy came immediately behind him and rolled the ball too.”

That gave them a double chance at knocking down pins. It also caused some hair-pulling anxiety on the part of staff, who didn’t want their new bowling alley smashed up by guffawing neophytes. Volkov put a stop to it.

Some had trouble getting the hang of basics — like balance. “Some people came in drunk,” Volkov says. “And one guy, after each throw, he would fall face-down on the lanes.” Volkov demonstrates, his arms spread wide.

Still, most people seemed to enjoy the chance for a little fun on a cold winter day. Vladivostok resident Marina Tarasenko said she and her family have gone bowling abroad many times, especially in Australia. And she likes it better in Vladivostok. You don’t have to set the computer yourself, and there is no language barrier for Russians trying to understand the game.

“It’s good that things like this have started to appear here in Vladivostok,” she said. “Now I have a place where I can go with my children, because we have virtually no entertainment for kids in town.”

Nonna Chernyakova also contributed to this story

Enkai Brothers Bowling

Where: 8 Batareynaya Street
Open: Daily from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m.
Cost for a game: 25 rubles from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; 35 rubles from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., 50 rubles from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Shoes included. Kids under 16 get a 10 ruble discount.