After I moved into my apartment, I
found myself having the “now what” moment. My week of partying
in Kharkiv had come to an end and I had to find new ways to occupy
myself in Kiev. I had already been building an array of friends here
before I had left, so I decided to tap into that pool and get back in
touch with Bridget. “You want to get some drinks sometime?” I
asked her over Facebook.
“Actually, you know there's a Hash meeting and a concert tomorrow,” she wrote back. “You want to come?”
“Right on.” Hashing is an international club that involves jogging, scavenger hunting and drinking. I loved at the very least doing a third of those activities. Basically, what it involves is a group of people meeting at a pub somewhere in a city. They then follow a “maze” of flour spots that the leaders have put out and they try to find the correct location. At the end of this, there's typically a break for beer followed by another flour maze, then after the hashing is done, everybody meets again to drink up all the calories they burned while jogging around in circles looking for the right path. The things some people invent to pass the time in this life! All in all though, I suppose it's better than wearing hair underwear and flogging yourself in a dungeon.
“Actually, you know there's a Hash meeting and a concert tomorrow,” she wrote back. “You want to come?”
“Right on.” Hashing is an international club that involves jogging, scavenger hunting and drinking. I loved at the very least doing a third of those activities. Basically, what it involves is a group of people meeting at a pub somewhere in a city. They then follow a “maze” of flour spots that the leaders have put out and they try to find the correct location. At the end of this, there's typically a break for beer followed by another flour maze, then after the hashing is done, everybody meets again to drink up all the calories they burned while jogging around in circles looking for the right path. The things some people invent to pass the time in this life! All in all though, I suppose it's better than wearing hair underwear and flogging yourself in a dungeon.
 |
| One view along the hash, piano made of tiles |
Organizing the hash was Dima, the same large Ukrainian guy
who was trying to kiss me at Anika's party. I didn't mind seeing him
again, since he seemed a decent enough fellow, despite all the
drunken kisses. Though I got used to men trying to kiss me a lot
with their slobbery lips while I was in Georgia, so this wasn't too
huge of a concern for me. I realized that some Eastern Europeans and
Asians just tend to take the bromance thing to a whole new notch.
 |
| more public art on the route |
There was a decent mix of foreigners and Ukrainians in the
group. There was one English guy who was in Kiev teaching English
for one company. “You should apply there, they take everyone,”
he said. I did apply later, but never heard back from them. Then
there was Daria, a girl who reminded me of the cartoon character of
the same name, with a very dry wit and a face that looked like she
was never impressed with anything. She carried a professional style
camera with her and was taking pictures of all the different scenes
of the city that we witnessed. There was also Tanya, another girl
who was obsessed with drawing, she kept a sketch book with her
wherever she went. Her goal in life was to design monsters for video
games. In the meantime, she was in love with a guy from Canada who
she may or may not see again.
After the hash, we all went back to Anika's place where we tanked up on beer, vodka and sandwiches before we headed on to the concert. The concert was at a place called Babuin, a more Bohemian style cafe that commonly had live music. Books lined all the walls and Ukrainian hipsters adorned the chairs, reading books and surfing on their MacBooks while adjusting their fake, horn rimmed glasses. Though I have a natural disdain for hipsters – back when I lived in Denver, I used to wax ecstatic for hours regarding how the degeneration of a society can be measured by the presence of fixed gear bicycles – I always enjoyed their locales. Mostly because hipster girls tend to be fairly attractive, slim, wearing black dresses and makeup. The only downside was that hipster girls tended to like more about as much as they'd like Tupac.
The band that we watched was a folk band, playing a variety of old Ukrainian songs on ethnic instruments. The music was a bit staunch and rigid though, and there was something a bit too aristocratic about it to make it real folksy. It was more like if the king hired a "folk" band to play something nice for the nobility, like when Presidents of the United States of America played at a Billy Clinton rally in the nineties.
More interesting was when they were finished. In the other room entered a group of street bards, dressed up in colored cloaks and masks. They carried instruments with them, violins, accordions and bass drums, along with a stench that could be smelled from the other room. They played a much more lively version of Ukrainian folk. They played two or three songs in the bar, while sending a bouncy woman around with a hat to collect money from the onlookers, before they retreated back up the stairs and went back onto the street. I assumed they were some sort of musicians' collective who just toured bars and tried to live off tip money.
My friends Alex and Katsia showed up, with an expressed intention to go somewhere to smoke some hookah. As some of our troupe broke up, Alex stood up and said, “Let's get out of here and get some shisha.” We took some of the hashers with us in a jaunt across town, looking for a hookah place where we knew we wouldn't have to reserve a table – in most Kievan bars, table reservations are a must, as they usually don't have standing room in most of the bars. Alex took a path that led us through alleys and courtyards, while Daria kept calling a boy to tell her their exact location.
“Why doesn't he just meet us where we're going?” I asked her.
“Because he wants to try to catch up with us,” she said.
“But with this route, he'll never be able to find us,” I said.
“He keeps saying we're going the wrong direction.”
We finally found the bar, and a few of the other hashers caught up with us, but unfortunately the bar had stopped serving hookah for some mysterious reason. “They usually have hookah,” Alex explained. “I wouldn't have led you guys ll the way here if I had known.” “I thought it was a fun route,” I chimed in. “Maybe the hookah guy is just out? Who knows. Palata No. 6 serves shisha, we can check if they've got any.” We went on to Palata No. 6, but without calling ahead for reservations, we found it impossible to get a seat there. We decided to just walk in one direction go to the first place that served hookah, Uruk, which ended up being an Uzbek restaurant near Zoloti Vorota. Uzbek food revolved mostly around pilaf and these dumplings that mysteriously looked a lot like Georgian khinkali. I opted against ordering them, since their cost was the same as how much khinkali cost at the Georgian restaurant I had found in Kiev a month back. The hookah was also the most expensive I had found yet in Ukraine. It was more than El Mate, and didn't have the premium hookah service and flavor that accompanied the usual trip to El Mate.
Dima caught up with us at the Uzbek place, but only at the end. Everyone had to leave to catch their respective metros. I was the last out, leaving Daria and Dima alone at the bar. I raced to the metro, still having plenty of time for the last train. Getting out at my stop some 30 minutes later, the air was crisp and cold and I listened to my headphones on the walk back to my apartment, ever enjoying the lights of the surrounding apartment towers.
After the hash, we all went back to Anika's place where we tanked up on beer, vodka and sandwiches before we headed on to the concert. The concert was at a place called Babuin, a more Bohemian style cafe that commonly had live music. Books lined all the walls and Ukrainian hipsters adorned the chairs, reading books and surfing on their MacBooks while adjusting their fake, horn rimmed glasses. Though I have a natural disdain for hipsters – back when I lived in Denver, I used to wax ecstatic for hours regarding how the degeneration of a society can be measured by the presence of fixed gear bicycles – I always enjoyed their locales. Mostly because hipster girls tend to be fairly attractive, slim, wearing black dresses and makeup. The only downside was that hipster girls tended to like more about as much as they'd like Tupac.
The band that we watched was a folk band, playing a variety of old Ukrainian songs on ethnic instruments. The music was a bit staunch and rigid though, and there was something a bit too aristocratic about it to make it real folksy. It was more like if the king hired a "folk" band to play something nice for the nobility, like when Presidents of the United States of America played at a Billy Clinton rally in the nineties.
More interesting was when they were finished. In the other room entered a group of street bards, dressed up in colored cloaks and masks. They carried instruments with them, violins, accordions and bass drums, along with a stench that could be smelled from the other room. They played a much more lively version of Ukrainian folk. They played two or three songs in the bar, while sending a bouncy woman around with a hat to collect money from the onlookers, before they retreated back up the stairs and went back onto the street. I assumed they were some sort of musicians' collective who just toured bars and tried to live off tip money.
My friends Alex and Katsia showed up, with an expressed intention to go somewhere to smoke some hookah. As some of our troupe broke up, Alex stood up and said, “Let's get out of here and get some shisha.” We took some of the hashers with us in a jaunt across town, looking for a hookah place where we knew we wouldn't have to reserve a table – in most Kievan bars, table reservations are a must, as they usually don't have standing room in most of the bars. Alex took a path that led us through alleys and courtyards, while Daria kept calling a boy to tell her their exact location.
“Why doesn't he just meet us where we're going?” I asked her.
“Because he wants to try to catch up with us,” she said.
“But with this route, he'll never be able to find us,” I said.
“He keeps saying we're going the wrong direction.”
We finally found the bar, and a few of the other hashers caught up with us, but unfortunately the bar had stopped serving hookah for some mysterious reason. “They usually have hookah,” Alex explained. “I wouldn't have led you guys ll the way here if I had known.” “I thought it was a fun route,” I chimed in. “Maybe the hookah guy is just out? Who knows. Palata No. 6 serves shisha, we can check if they've got any.” We went on to Palata No. 6, but without calling ahead for reservations, we found it impossible to get a seat there. We decided to just walk in one direction go to the first place that served hookah, Uruk, which ended up being an Uzbek restaurant near Zoloti Vorota. Uzbek food revolved mostly around pilaf and these dumplings that mysteriously looked a lot like Georgian khinkali. I opted against ordering them, since their cost was the same as how much khinkali cost at the Georgian restaurant I had found in Kiev a month back. The hookah was also the most expensive I had found yet in Ukraine. It was more than El Mate, and didn't have the premium hookah service and flavor that accompanied the usual trip to El Mate.
Dima caught up with us at the Uzbek place, but only at the end. Everyone had to leave to catch their respective metros. I was the last out, leaving Daria and Dima alone at the bar. I raced to the metro, still having plenty of time for the last train. Getting out at my stop some 30 minutes later, the air was crisp and cold and I listened to my headphones on the walk back to my apartment, ever enjoying the lights of the surrounding apartment towers.
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