Young Love in my Kiev Storage Apartment-

Back in the summer of 2001, I was betrayed by a close friend who forced me out of the business we had set up together in Kiev.  It was a hard life lesson, but at the end of the day, I never should have been so lax on getting certain verbal agreements down on paper and that is what allowed the injustice to happen.  I persevered and moved on, but once it happened, Kiev had become toxic and I needed to take a step back to regroup.  I decided to head to the States for a few months to figure out my next move.

                                                                

I immediately went to work arranging things.  One night during this upheaval, I was drinking at the best club in town, a place called 111, with a German friend named Gerry.  I explained to him what happened and mentioned my short-term plan.

“So I’ve been calling around looking for a safe place to store all my stuff for a few months while I head stateside to figure things out.  I’ll probably stay in Europe, but not Kiev…it’s time to move on.”

“Mikey, I have an idea.  I’ve been renting a corporate flat for when my colleagues visit from Frankfurt.  I was going to let it go since we don’t use it that often and it is an unnecessary cost.  But, if you are interested, you can store your things there and we can split the rent.”

“This could be interesting.  Tell me about it.”

“It’s two rooms with a small kitchen and bathroom in the center on Red Army Street.  You can put your things in the bedroom and lock the door and I will use the other space for colleagues.  The living room has a couch that opens into a bed, so it will work.”

“How much is it?

“$600 a month, so we can split it- $300 each.”

“You know, that’s cheaper than the storage places I’ve been looking at and I’m sure it’s also safer.  And I’ll have a place to crash when I come back after the states.”

“Yes, this will be our good cooperation.”  Gerry said with a broad smile.

“I’m in.”

We drank and agreed on everything.  Over the next few days, I checked out the flat, then bought a ticket for the States, paid Gerry a few months rent and moved all my stuff there.  Gerry described it perfectly.  I had a small bedroom by the entrance where I stacked all my worldly possessions around the bed and his colleagues would have the bigger living room with a couch/bed, TV, balcony and a big dresser.  I locked the bedroom door and flew to the states shortly thereafter. 

I spent about five months in the states and returned to Kiev in the fall.  I came to terms with losing my company and planned on using Kiev as a short-term base while I interviewed for jobs in Moscow and London.  I wrote Gerry a few days before I was due to arrive and informed him that I would be moving into the flat early the following week.  He responded that he was looking forward to seeing me. 

The cheapest flight I could find back was through Paris and I got delayed over four hours waiting for my connection at Charles de Gaulle airport.  By the time I made it to the flat in Kiev, it was a 16-hour commute and I was exhausted.  I looked forward to crashing for a few hours.  When I tried to open the door, the lock wouldn’t turn.  I fiddled with it for a few minutes to no avail.  I rang the doorbell a few times and kept trying to get the lock to open.  After a few minutes, a guy and a girl, who I had never seen before, opened the door from the inside.  They weren’t fully dressed.

“You must be Michael,” the guy said.

“Yes, who are you?”

“I’m Maxim.  This is Nadia.  We work with Gerry.  He told us you arriving today.”

“Oh, Ok, nice to meet you.  Is Gerry here?”

No, he let us use apartment sometime.  Come in.”

They stepped back and I entered.  They then turned around, walked a few steps and turned into my storage room and shut the door behind them.  I had no idea what to say or do, so I dropped my bags by the door and went to the living room and sat on the couch.  I looked around.  The place was a total pigsty and the coffee table had two ashtrays overflowing with butts and ashes.  A thick layer of dust coated just about everything and the windows were clouded with dirt.  “What a fucking mess,” I said to myself.

After a few minutes, I decided to wash up and brush my teeth, so I went back to hallway to get my toiletry bag and a change of clothes out of my luggage.  When I was going through my bag, I distinctly heard the girl moaning and the bed in my room creaking over and over.  Her moans grew louder.  The guy was going to town and I just couldn’t believe that this was my Kiev homecoming after a five-month hiatus following one of the worst tragedies of my life. 

I shook my head, grabbed my things and went into the bathroom.  I showered, changed into some sweats and then went back to the living room.  Maxim and Nadia had finished their love session and when they heard me exit the bathroom, they left the bedroom and went into it, cleaned up quickly, said goodbye and left.

Once I had the apartment to myself, I checked my room to make sure all my things, especially my art collection, were still there.  Thankfully, everything seemed ok.  I then called Gerry.

“Ah-lo?”

“Hey Gerry- it’s Mike.”

“Mikey!  Welcome back to Kiev!  We’ve missed you.”

“Thanks.  I just arrived about a half hour ago and there were some people in the apartment?”

“Oh yes.  That is Maxim and Nadia.  They work in my office.”  He just left it at that.

“I understand, but what are they doing in the apartment and why is my room unlocked?  You told me that my things would be secure and you would only use the living room when I was away?”

“Mikey please--- It is young love!  They love each other, but are both married to other people.  You know how it is.  I told them that they could use the flat during the week so they could be together.  I gave them a key.”

Yes, but it’s my room with all my possessions.  This wasn’t our agreement-”

“Mikey, I know these people- do not worry- it is alright.  It is young love!”  He seemed to place a high importance on the love part and no importance on it being done in my room.  Knowing it was hopeless, I let it go.

“Ok Gerry, thanks.  I’ll see you at 111 later tonight.”  I hung up. 

I was too exhausted to argue- the jet lag was getting the upper hand.  I went into the bedroom, looked around for some clean sheets to change the bed- there weren’t any, so I pulled the old ones off, put them in the washer on a hot cycle and laid down on the blanket with my jacket over me for warmth.  I immediately crashed for four hours. 

The sky was dark when I woke up.  I turned over and flipped on the light.  I felt something in my mouth and pulled out a pubic hair.  A small black curly one.  Oh god- what a nightmare!  I looked more closely at the blanket.  It was made of brown wool and under the light I saw that it was full of pubes and crusted semen.  I felt disgusted.  “Fucking Gerry!  This is what I get for going the cheap route!”  I screamed to myself.

I got up, threw the blanket into the corner, took the wet sheets from the washer and put them by the radiator to dry.  I then brushed my teeth excessively and took another long, hot shower.  I was beaten down, depressed and distressed.  It felt like my lovely Kiev had turned on me in every way.  I went to the bar for a bite and to meet my old journalist friend from England, Brian.  I tried not to think about the cum crusted pubic hair ridden bed, but it was a hard thing to get out of my mind…especially that damn pube that was in my teeth.

When I got to 111, the place was jumping.  I found Brian at the bar and grabbed a seat next to him.  The bar was elevated in the center of a big room surrounded by a dance floor and it ever so slowly rotated in a circle so you were constantly moving around and could check out different areas as it went around.  As usual, the club was packed with girls, drunks and good times.  I told Brian the story about my storage room and waking up with a pubic hair in my teeth….he had a hearty laugh about it. 

“I probably should’ve told you mate- Gerry has been very open about handing out the keys to that place.”

“What?  What are you talking about???”

“I’ve seen Gerry offer the place many a night to people who need a fuck pad.  I didn’t know they were using your room, but the place is open for fucking to just about anyone he knows.”

“You’re shitting me- my whole fucking life is in that room and strangers have been fucking in there for the last five months?!?”

Brain was red in the face from laughing about it.  “Ask Tigran if you don’t believe me.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a key on him right now.”  He said before getting into another laughing fit.

“Tigran?  You’re taking the piss– right?”  Tigran was the head security guy at the bar.  He was a short burly dude from Armenia who was always glistening in sweat and was covered in hair from head to toe.  

“From the sounds of it mate, it may have been Tigran’s pubic hair you found in your mouth.”  Brian’s love of this situation was undiminished.  He waved Tigran over.  He had a key on him.     

I couldn’t believe it.  Against the backdrop of Kiev’s vibrant nightlife I realized that anyone can go from top of the heap to the gutter in the blink of an eye, but the gutter isn’t the end- you can just as easily fall through the grate and into the sewer, with all the other pubes, semen, rats and other nasty shit. 

I took the first job I could find and was in Moscow within a couple weeks.  Another chapter began from the ashes…

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Want to read another fun tale from the wild days of Kiev?   Ever heard about a bear riding a motorbike?  Check out Another Day at the Circus Linked below-)

https://libertinereflections.blogspot.com/2017/12/another-day-at-circus.html

 

    

   

   

 

A Spark of Revolution in Russia That Didn’t Catch-

A Spark of Revolution in Russia That Didn’t Catch-

Russia’s recent presidential election gave Vladimir Putin his fourth term with 77% of the vote alongside a higher than expected turnout.  However, international election monitors believe that this was Russia’s most flagrantly manipulated election yet and estimate that at least 10 million fraudulent votes found their way into the ballot box, while all real opposition candidates were barred from the race.  Even though this was expected, it sadly shows just how far Russia has fallen and how her citizens have given up on their political system.  The authorities have succeeded in removing dissent from the process, but this wasn’t always the case. 

I remember my last election living in Moscow.  It was for the Russian State Duma (parliament) and it took place in December 2011.  This was an interesting time in Russia.  Despite strong oil prices, the economy was slowing down under the immense (and growing) weight of state corruption and opposition to the Kremlin was rising, though it was still not considered any real threat.

On Monday, the day after the election, we waited for the results, but none came.  This was strange.  At 8pm, I left the office and went home.  On Tuesday morning day, I discovered that the authorities released the results about an hour after I left the office the night before and they were so doctored to keep the ruling party in total control that a spontaneous protest had erupted and a leading opposition leader had been arrested (among many others).  I was flabbergasted and proud.  A spontaneous protest in Putin’s Russia?  People demanding their democracy?  This was unheard of and frankly, I didn’t think the Russians had it in them.

“Did anyone see the news about a protest at Chiste Prudy last night?  Navalny was arrested?!”  I said to the office as I arrived.  Everyone said they heard about and saw it on the news.

“Please do me a favor.  Anytime you see or hear of anything like this, send me a text to let me know.  I was at home doing nothing and I would’ve loved to go see what was happening.  I cannot believe that people actually protested!” 

“Ok Mike, we will tell you.”  My colleagues said in a lackluster and uninspiring tone.  It seemed like I was the only one who cared about the whole thing.

That afternoon, our head of research said another unauthorized protest was being called to take place at Mayakovskaya Square at 6pm.  Mayakovskaya was right around the corner and down the block from the office.  I couldn’t believe another protest was happening.  This really was unheard of under Putinism.

“Hey, I’m going to check out the protest out at six- if anyone wants to leave work early [we usually worked to 7pm], please join me.  If all of us want to go, we can call it a team building event and close the office early,” I offered to silence.  No one was interested.  They would rather work than go support a civic action.  I then emailed everyone I knew to see if anyone wanted to join me.  I only received one response from an American guy named Lewis who said that he had his bowling league that night, but would be happy to swing by the protest for an hour beforehand.  We agreed to meet at my office and walk up together. 

When Lewis arrived, I again asked the team if anyone wanted to come along.  Crickets. We headed out.  When we turned onto the main street (think Michigan Ave in Chicago or 5^th Ave in NYC), the street was like a military zone.  No one was walking on sidewalks that would usually be packed with the rush hour commute.  The street itself had no cars on it and was lined with personnel carriers and other military vehicles.  There was a strange and ominous quiet in downtown Moscow that night.  “This isn’t normal, let’s walk up and see if anyone’s there.”  I said to Lewis.  He didn’t say a word.

We walked up the street and when we got to Mayakovskaya we hit a line of policemen who curtly told us to turn around and leave.  As we turned around and started walking back, we saw something amazing.  People were literally pouring out of all the crevices, doorways and side streets and the whole sidewalk was filling up with a massive crowd.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Lewis said.

“Well, let’s give it ten minutes to see what happens.”  I told him. 

I turned back toward the police and could see that they were preparing for something.  “It looks like the police are…”  I said turning back to Lewis only to find that he had retreated into the crowd without saying a word.  I couldn’t blame him.  It felt dangerous and the police were out in full riot gear.  I told myself to stay for 10-15 minutes just to get a feel for what was happening. 

Sidewalk filling up

Anyway, it didn’t matter by now; the sidewalk had become so dense with people pushing up from the back that there wasn’t any good option to move- we were body-to-body and packed in tight.

Then, everyone at the front line started screaming.  The police were moving in.  They started violently pushing a cordon into the middle of the crowd and arresting people.  That’s when I realized that we walked up right after this type of action had cleared out the space momentarily.  The same thing was happening again.  Within a few minutes the protesters scattered, the police retreated with a couple of handfuls of protesters, and I was left standing there in shock.

During this “low tide,” I moved next to a building near the front and pulled out my iPhone and started recording and taking photos.  I wanted a record to show the U.S. consulate just in case I got arrested.  As before, after a few minutes, the protesters regrouped and the sidewalk filled up.  Then, the police pushed in again and dragged people away.  The crowd screamed, pushed and dispersed.  This was the cycle and it happened over and over throughout the night.  I was right in the thick of it all and it was as exhilarating as it was nerve racking.  I didn’t freak because it was clear that the police realized I was a foreigner and were ignoring me.  I stayed for the next four hours and saw countless people get violently arrested despite doing nothing except standing in peaceful protest for fair elections.  There were many chants, but “Russia without Putin!”, “Putin is a thief!”, and “Shame!” were the most popular.  It was exciting to behold so many people voicing their opposition in front of the cops.    

Trombone Player in the Window

                                       Above: One of the videos

At one point, as the police backed off and the crowd swelled again, someone in the apartment right above me opened the window and started playing a trombone and the crowd went nuts.  The music had a rallying affect on us.  It cut through the sense of impending doom.  For the first time in a long time I was so proud of Russia and the Russians.  No matter how many of the protesters the police beat and arrested, they weren’t going anywhere.  They were taking a stand against a president that was undermining all of liberties that Yeltsin had somehow managed to give them.  By the end of the night, I must’ve seen over 500 protesters arrested.

Once it ended, I walked around the square a bit.  It was clearly over, so I hopped a cab to a club called Chesterfield’s on Novy Arbat.  I felt energized from the extended adrenaline rush and wanted a drink to digest what I just witnessed.

The next day the authorities reported the official protest size at less than 500.  “That’s impossible!”  I told my office.  “I saw at least that number of people get arrested and the square was still packed.”  I always suspected that giving liberty to a society would be a hell of a lot easier than taking it away and thought this theory may finally be proven right.

The opposition called for another mass protest for the coming Saturday at Bolotnaya Square.  Putin’s government had never seen anything like this before and they shifted into crisis mode.  The following day the government updated its official statistics and reported that around 550 people were arrested at the protest I was at.  They then sanctioned the Bolotnaya protest to make it “official”.  This was taken as a victory by the opposition, but it was also a shrewd calculation on the Kremlin’s part.  They were betting that the protesters just needed to blow off steam and with winter right around the corner, the movement would die out once the blizzards came and temperatures dropped below zero. 

They were right, but it took some time.  At one rally a few weeks later, there were over 100,000 people in minus 20 degrees standing around for hours.  Nemtsov, Navalny and other opposition leaders made speeches at all the rallies, but no one pushed for any concrete actions, the election results didn’t change and, over time, the people gave up.

Once the protests died down, opposition leaders started getting arrested on trumped up charges.  Then, over more time, the economy continued faltering, Ukraine had its own revolution, Crimea was stolen and the Russian army invaded eastern Ukraine.  It was all a real disaster.  I closed down or sold everything I had in Russia and headed stateside.  A few months after I had left, Nemtsov, one of the main opposition leaders and a former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia under Yeltsin was shot in the back multiple times right in front of the Kremlin one night.  All the security cameras in that area were turned off and the police that maintained a constant presence in that exact spot for my entire time in Moscow were no where to be found when the murder occurred.  The crime is still unsolved today.  Pretty much all opposition gave up after that.  And now Russia has even more flagrant election violations, the economy is a mess, and no one says a word.

 

 About a week after the protest I was reading a magazine called "Power" which is basically like
Time/Newsweek and surprisingly came across this photo of the protest.  I'm up in front on the 
right with my phone out.  

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If you liked this blog, you may like one of these from the archive too-)

On Russia:

https://libertinereflections.blogspot.com/2018/02/gouzelle-from-museum.html

On Ukraine’s ongoing Revolution of Dignity:

https://libertinereflections.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-fire-that-burns-within.html

  

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My First Joint in Kiev-

My First Joint in Kiev-

Kiev, February 1997- I had just spent a couple hours at my new hangout bar when a girl named Renata came up and invited me to join her and her boyfriend, Vasya.  Native English speakers were quite unique in Kiev back then and they wanted to meet me.  I was the first American they had ever seen in person.  Renata and Vasya both spoke English good enough to hold a decent conversation, and I was already buzzing and up for a talk, so I accepted and joined their table.  Vasya worked as a driver in an office and Renata was a student.  After a few more rounds of drinks and pretty banal talk about where I was from and how I liked living in Ukraine, I noticed Vasya doing something in his hands under the table.  He had emptied the tobacco out of a cigarette and was refilling the paper with what looked like a marijuana-tobacco mix.  He noticed that I noticed.

“Michael, you smoke grass?”  I liked his choice of word for weed, it seemed archaic, really 60s to me.

“Wow, I haven’t seen any “grass” in Kiev since I got here.  I didn’t think people smoked here.”

“You can join us this cigarette once I finish.”

“I’d love to, thanks!”

Vasya reloaded the cigarette paper with the weed-tobacco mixture.  He then rolled the foam filter between his thumb and forefinger so that it separated from the cigarette paper and took it out.  He replaced it with a little piece of a business card rolled into the shape of a filter and invited me to join him and Renata outside for a smoke.  We went outside to the street.  They left their jackets at the table even though it was snowing outside, so I left mine as well.  It had been snowing all night and everything was covered in a thick blanket of white.  The city seemed very peaceful and quiet.  

Vasya torched up the cigarette looking joint and took a few deep drags.  He was in no rush.  After a minute or so and a few more deep hits, he then passed the joint to Renata.  She took a few drags, again in no hurry, and it was more than halfway gone by now.  I was excited to smoke and was anxiously waiting my turn.  Renata finally passed the baton to me.

“Thank you- My first joint in Kiev!” I announced triumphantly, holding it up, looking at it with a smile as the snow fell peacefully around us.  I then brought the joint toward my lips to take a hit.  Simultaneously as I did this, I heard a car sliding in the snow.  I looked over to see the police in a small four-door Lada, a Russian car ubiquitous in Kiev back then.  The road was covered in at least six inches of snow, so the cop car slid for a good ten feet as the driver stomped on the brakes.  I stared in disbelief at what was unfolding before my eyes.  As the car came to a halt, all four doors opened at once and four cops got out and started approaching at a fast clip.  Vasya and Renata looked at me with wide eyes and said in a pleading whisper, “Michael, drop it!  Drop it!”  They were panicked.   

A Russian Lada 4-Door Police Car

I froze at first, but as the cops were stepping up the curb about eight feet away, I dropped the joint and stepped it into the snow.  When I did this the cops yelled something and were immediately on me.  One grabbed me hard by my arm and started saying something forcefully.  I couldn’t understand him at all, as my Russian was still nothing more than basic words like “hello, please, thank you, good day, where is the toilet,” etc.  Another cop picked up what remained of the cigarette joint and broke it apart in his black gloved hand.  He inspected the remaining contents of weed mixed with tobacco and pointed to the green specks and asked, “Schto etot? Schto etot?!”  I knew that one meant, “What is it? What is it?” 

I shook my head, shrugged my shoulders and said, “Cigarette???” 

They didn’t like this and the cop that had me by the arm started going through all my pockets.  Both Renata and Vasya didn’t say a word.  The cop found my passport and gave it to one of his colleagues.  After he didn’t find any weed in my pockets, he put his fingers into my shoes, into my socks; he was determined to find another joint or a stash on me.  When he finished with me, empty-handed, he went to Vasya and did the same thing.  They found nothing.  They then asked me where my jacket was.  I said in the bar and pointed to the stairs leading down to it.  They told me to go get it.  I went down the stairs and opened the door.  The cop was behind me.  He never let go and he had a strong grip on my upper left arm. 

The door screamed as it opened, its hinge was broken.  The bar was packed and it was loud from all the conversations taking place.  Once the cop entered after me the entire room immediately went quiet.  You could hear the mice breathe.  Sophia’s face went from a toothy smile to major concern.  She owned the bar.

“Michael- what happening?”  She said.

“Sophia, I’m in trouble,” was all I could say with a breaking voice and scared eyes.  The cop pushed me forward.  I went to our table and grabbed my coat.  It was a long heavy jacket, trench coat style that went down to my knees.  Once I took it in my hand, the cop immediately yanked it violently out of my hand with all his might and then manhandled me back out the door and up the stairs.  He then went through all the pockets himself.  Again, he found nothing.  As before, they moved onto Vasya and he went into the bar with another cop and they came out a minute later with the cop holding his jacket.  They found nothing.  Strangely, they never harassed or even searched Renata at all during this incident.  Also, by this time, Sophia had sent a young kid, he was maybe 20 years old, out to translate for me.  He spoke to them in Russian and then turned to me.

“Do you have any money?”  He said.

“Yes, I showed him my wad of Ukrainian Hryvnias.”  This was the new currency of Ukraine.  They had only started using it a few months earlier.  “They can take it.  I’m happy to pay them.”  I told the kid.  My heart was racing.  I dreaded the idea of having to call my boss to have him bail me out of prison or even worse, have my visa revoked and lose my new job.  I was pretty much freaking out as I thought over all the ways this stupid joint could screw me. 

“No, not Hryvnia, real money, do you have dollars?”  My translator asked clearly concerned that my bribe money was in local form and not hard currency. 

“Dollars?  Uh, no, only Hryvnia.  Why?  The police only take dollars???”  I was confused.

“Dollars would be better.”  He said clearly indicating his disappointment that an American would be without greenbacks in such a situation.  I shrugged my shoulders.  I didn’t have any dollars on me, but I did make a mental note to always keep a small supply of them on me for bribe purposes if at all possible.   

They all started talking again and I just stood next to them holding out about a hundred dollars worth of Hryvnia in my hand.  I had no idea what they were saying, but after a minute or two of seemingly heated discussion, an old Ukrainian babushka walked by.  She was hunched over and bundled up with a lot of layers of clothes.  She stopped and listened to what the group was saying.  She looked at me with my hand still held out with the Ukrainian money in it and heard me speaking English to my translator.  She then looked back at the police and said something.  One of the cops answered her.  She thought about it a moment, shook her head and said something else shaking her head and trudged away through the snow.  When she said her last remark and walked away, all the police broke out laughing, as did my translator, Renata and Vasya. 

“What did she say?”  I asked.

My young translator replied, “She asked what happening.  The police explain that you American and smoking something, but you no anything on you.  They say they try figure out what to do now.  To this she say, “he American, just take his money and go-” and then she walk away.” 

I saw this as an opportunity and again offered my Hryvnias, but everything had changed.  The old woman’s realism had miraculously defused the tension and the cops handed me back my passport and just like that got back in their car and drove away.  I was shocked that the situation ended so abruptly, bloodlessly and without a bribe changing hands.

“It finished now.”  My translator said smiling. 

“Why didn’t they take my money?”  I asked him as we walked back into the bar.

“They could no.  In our country anything on ground public and you no have anything on you, they could no charge you.  Come inside.  Have drink.  It finish now.”

And that was my first joint in Kiev.  I didn’t even have one small hit, but it packed a

punch nonetheless- large stress filled drama followed by a happy ending.  When we got back into the bar everyone went quiet again, anxious to hear what had happened.  My translator told the story to Sophia in Russian loud enough so that the crowded room could also hear it and at the end, everyone clapped.  One person even yelled, “Bravo!” a couple times.  The people next to me were patting me on the back.  Sophia gave me a fresh beer and a shot of vodka on the house.   It was surreal.  People were buying me vodka shots all night- toasting to my first run in with the Ukrainian police.  The accelerated drinking went on and on and my street credit went up big time at the bar from that night forward.  

I don’t even remember leaving the bar that night, but I woke up naked in bed next to a girl the following morning.  I had no idea who she was or how she got there. 

One  Hryvnia

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Interested in other stories from Kiev/Kyiv?  Try this one: An Afternoon in the Drunk Tank in Kyiv

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