Brunch in Kyiv with Kartoshka

Brunch in Kyiv with Kartoshka

I rolled out of my apartment at three.  I decided to walk to my favourite restaurant and get some eggs.  It was a pleasant day.  The sun was shining.  The walk to the place would take about thirty minutes, which would give my body enough time to prepare for the food after a late night of drinking.  I had to walk down a hill, next to a busy road.  One of the main problems with Kiev during this time was the automobiles.  They stunk.  I don’t think the idea of catalytic converters was embraced under Soviet times and now, just a few years into post-Communist independence, no one apparently cared enough to change this technological deficiency.  The people were used to it I guess.  I remember hearing that when West Germany took in the East, the West phased out all the Soviet-era cars.  I think something like 80% of East Germany’s cars were outlawed.  It sounded crazy to me when I first heard it, but walking down this street on a beautiful day and only smelling toxic exhaust fumes, I understood what they were going after.  It all made sense now. 

Besides the aroma of the autos, everything else was fairly normal.  It was February and the street had a lot of sand on the shoulder and sidewalk from the winter snow.  The Ukrainians don’t salt their roads, they spray sand on them all winter long and it builds up so that at the end of winter, they then have to clean all the streets.  Since the snow had melted due to a short heat wave the previous week, the sand was now a few inches deep.    It was soft under my feet.  I walked down.  I passed an old man humbling up the hill.  He was old, tired, beaten by life.  When I walked past him, my eyes involuntarily stared down in front of me.  Once beyond him, I look up again, only when I was safe from confrontation.  I don’t know why I had such a hard time looking at the extreme poor, maybe I was scared.

This was the bar-

Once inside the restaurant, I sat down at the bar.  I didn’t think I wanted to drink and my body would have been better for it, but I ordered a Greyhound anyway.  It was Saturday, things would turn out to be ok.  I had the usual on my agenda, eat, maybe get drunk, walk back home and take a nap.  Who knew from there?  I really wasn’t interested in doing much else.  I liked it that way.  The weekdays I did things for others.  I had an office job- it was routine and consumed all my time.  On the weekends it was my time and I didn’t care about much- just as long as I wasn’t bothered by anyone.  Over the years, I realised that isolation was good for me and began to crave it.  Isolation let me see things about life that most people usually cannot.  Isolation also kept me from going nuts.  I don’t mean to imply that being alone will make one more aware.  Most people don’t see shit alone or with others.  They are not set up that way.  They just plod through their days and think they know what’s happening and how they look and where they are, but in reality they can’t figure out or see anything that’s really going on.  They embrace the routine and that somehow fulfils them as their lives pass by unnoticed.  They’re zombies.  I don’t like many people.  And fortunately I like myself, so I don’t care very much about what most others think. 

The restaurant was still packed when I got there even though it was late in the day.  It was Kiev’s only decent weekend brunch and all the ex-pat phonies kept walking through the door.  They would have these big toothy grins and scouring eyes.  “Hello, ohh hello, good to see you.  Hello...” I hated it, but I liked the place, it had energy and more importantly good American food.  Also, the girls that worked there were cute and they liked me for some reason.  Maybe it was because I stood out from the other foreigners who lived in the city.  As for the restaurant’s clientele, I am glad I managed to keep my distance with most of them.  In a city such as Kiev, the ex-pat groups were tight-knit.  Usually comprised of a lot of bland bankers, accountants, consultants, lawyers, government workers and the like.  I had managed to remain out of their circles for a decent time, they recognised me and I them, but we didn’t speak much.  If we did I probably wouldn’t be able to go to these places. 

The hostess today I liked.  I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her.  She was young, cute and petite.  I had seen her at a bar a week earlier and we got to talking.  She was from a small city three hours south of town.  A small town girl working in the city.  She had said that she hated cities, but needed the work and this job was the only one she could find.  There was something about small town girls that I liked.  They had an obscure innocence.  They’re usually sweet and a little crazy.  I liked that.  A girl needs to be a little crazy.  I need the spunk and unpredictability.  City girls think they know everything and make sure that you know that they think they know everything.  It can be hard dealing with their

arrogance at times.  I finished my meal, had a few more drinks, paid and started walking out.  As I passed the hostess, I stopped and looked at her.  I said goodbye and called her potato in Russian (kar-tosh-ka).  “Why kartoshka???” she asked.  “Because you’re my little Potato, we should go out for a drink sometime” was all I said.  She liked that.  She gave me her number.  I left.

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