It was mentioned in a comment on a previous post that I seemed to be hating Kiev. Now that really isn’t true, despite my occasional whingeing which is just trying to paint a realistic picture of life as it happens to me. Come to think of it, I am one of the less whingey expats in Kiev – and most ex-pats whinge a lot.
But you show me an ecstatically joyous expat in Kiev and I’ll show you a near middle-aged paunchy American / British male with 19-year-old busty blonde Svetlana draped on his arm.
There are various coping mechanisms for living in Kiev, such as leaving every other week for Paris / London / whatever airport is at least 3 hours flight away from the FSU region. MDF, for example has chosen the mooney route (not the bizarre religion) which he performs out the window of our apartment whenever life gets too desperate. Thankfully we are not overlooked by neighbours. Moonies are to be recommended as they are a great laughter generator. And as MDF and I agreed, the minute we stop laughing is the minute we leave. That minute is fast approaching.
To prove that sometimes we have a good time in Kiev, I’ll tell you about Saturday night. The day started at lunchtime with MDF’s company party – for expats. I would have preferred it if the local contingent were invited as it would give a chance to discuss other topics than – how long have you been in Kiev / where were you before? / how long have you got before your time’s up? / how much do you hate Kiev?
Being a work do, the alcohol was in full flow, and despite my grumblings prior to the event (why does it have to be a Saturday? Why do I have to sit and listen to MDF schmoozing his boss, blah blah)the do was a lot of fun. When else do you get to have salsa lessons, wine tasting, sushi on tap, cooking lessons from a top chef, gorge out on funny nouveau cuisine stuff like tuna doused in dry ice with a frozen wasabi cream followed by a frozen pina colada chaser; all washed down over 9 hours with as much beer and wine (and vodka and brandy for those hardened alcoholics) as you can stomach, and every bit of it on someone else’s budget? Do you see me whingeing? No you don’t.
When the last bottle of wine ran out it was time to go and I had the great idea of heading to the Rock n Roll diner. The atmosphere was, well, rocking and there were no annoying posy devoushka types. Our waiter was a sweetheart – he put up with our drunken idiocy with a sense of humour and he spoke French, English, Arabic, Russian and Ukrainian as required. So I got to practice ordering in French.
Several mojitos later MDF took us off to Art Club 44 for more mojitos, monkey business and a white russian which isn’t a bad description of our contingent. There was an excellent live band, but a bit hard on the eardrums - although that may be my advancing years speaking. And there were no annoying posy devoushka types.
M and I went to throw some shapes on the miniscule dance floor, and as ever here is an actual conversation for good measure:
Ukrainian boy: you! Where are you from?
me: not Ukraine.
UB: hahahahahahaha! Where are you from?
me: I’m from Africa*.
UB: no!
me: yes, I was born in Zimbabwe.
UB: aaaahahahahahahahahahahahahoohohohohohosnortsnort! (And almost collapses on the floor).
And that was the end of that conversation. Insightful or not, you can decide. Maybe the guy was just high.
A very large man stripped himself to the waist and stepped up onto the stage to demonstrate his pelvic thrusting ability. This made my mojito a little hard to swallow. The bouncer, who was half the stripper’s size, asked him to step down and the large man did so without protest.
All in it was a great night** and we wished we did it more often as it would be another Kiev coping mechanism to add to the list.
*I am trying this phraseology and it completely changes the direction of conversation, or brings it to an hysterical halt. Previously I would say I’m English, and leave out the Africa bit, thinking no-one gives a hoot where I grew up – I was wrong.
**I didn’t mention that I honked my guts up when we got home because I don’t want to appear whingey.
