This is my 3rd time coming to Kiev for work purposes. Apparently, the clients love me too much!! The last time I was here, it was super cold, snowing like nobody's business. But this time around, the weather is superbly fine....blue sky and plenty of sunshine.
Since the weather is great, I decided to explore the city more than I did few years ago. Surprisingly, I managed to find plenty of novelty places. One that comes to mind is this bar/restaurant with Beatles memorabilia hanging everywhere in the place. In fact, the place has a Beatles theme to it. The menu has all the titles of the Beatles' albums and they even have a live band playing all the oldies. It is not a shabby place to hangout at all. I have to admit, the reason why I stepped into this place was coz I saw a rainbow flag painted on the ceiling. Turns out that it is not a gay place at all, but its just a psychedellic color. Damn, I was cheated..neverthetheless, its quite a nice place to hang. Unfortunately, I can't give you the address of the place since the street signs are all in Cryllic and I have no idea what the name of the place is either. But it is certainly smack at the city center.
During the week, I also ventured to an Irish Pub called Golden Gate. It is a very nice pub with great live music. The food is delish and the service was great. And this speaks volumes!! I have been to several restaurants here, and the service sucked big time! Just to name a few, O'Briens Irish Pub has the worst ever service and the food was ick! The waitress looked like they had something stuck between their arse! Not kidding. They hardly smile and they are not bothered to sit you even though you look lost. The most interesting thing was that most of the restaurants that I go too which are catered to the foreigners are filled with women who loves "entertaining" men, if you know what I mean. This two older men, dressed up in pilot uniforms made me wanna puke! They were all over the girls. I felt like going up to them and slapping them or calling their airline supervisor just to report on them misbehaving!! How embarassing. I wonder if the clothes they are wearing is just part of role playing or if they were real pilots.
The other place that I went to is called TATO. It is the 1st and only Fashion Club/restaurant in Kiev. I thought it was a novelty idea and since I have never been to one before, I wanted to check it out during the weekend. Boy, it was certainly an experience. There were go go dancers, fashion shows and even topless dancers. I have never seen a table dancing thingy before, so my eyes were popping out and I was just smiling uncontrollably during the whole performance. They were just grinding themselves to the guy eventhough the guy never told them to come up to him to do a lap dance. The guy gave them some tip and she almost spit at him saying that it was not enough for a long performance. In the end, the guy didn't pay and I think she did spit at him...hehe
Well, the goal of my weekend was also to check out the lesbian scene in Kiev. There was nothing on the internet. The only thing that I found was a gay club called Androgyne. I went there before last year and it certainly caters more to the gay men than women. I was adamant to find a lesbian place, so I searched on the internet and translated a few pages of Russian websites. Finally, I had a breakthrough. I found a website www.gayua.com and they had a lesbian section. It says that there is this new club opened since 2006 Oct, and it is exclusively for women. It is called 911. What an original name, no? Hey, I aint complaining. If the name is SHIT, I would still go there out of desperation and curiousity of course. I took down the address (Artema 10) and took a cab there. The cab driver ripped me off, asking for 50GVR (8EUR) for a bloody 2 minute ride. I came out of the taxi and what I saw in front of me was not a club at all. It was a casino and rite next to it, it was an abandoned building. I searched high and low but there was no sign. After half an hour, I decided to give up. I came back to the hotel and made a call to the club. Surprisingly, the person who picked up the phone spoke good English! woohoo! She told me to give my email address to her so that she could send me the map of the place.
Turns out that the club is just behind the block. I had to go around the block to find this club. The best part is, if you don't know, you would never find it. PERIOD!! There is this blue door with flakey paint on it. Not a good sign. I didnt know if I should step into it or not coz I wasn't sure if it was the rite place. 2 girls were behind me and I slowed down my pace. I said to them "911?" and they nodded. I let them ring the bell first and go in before I entered myself. I admit, I looked stupidly cautious and I think the girls were looking at me strangely. She tried talking to me in English but I think she gave up after awhile. She got tired of trying I suppose...hehe..
The first thing I see when I entered are posters of half naked men. Interesting decor for a lesbian club. I suppose it is a relic from the previous club owner. Apparently, it was a gay club called HOLE before it turned to a lesbian club. The club is situated downstairs. It was so quiet that I was starting to get worried that it would be an empty club. Entry to the club is 20GVR (3EUR). As I entered the club thru another blue door, I was surprised to see the club filled with women. Lots of them too!! Music was playing loudly, girls were dancing on the podium, laughing and having fun. I could grow to like this place.
The club isn't too big, which I think is fine since the lesbian community isn't so big in the 1st place. But the decor could be so much better. Everything in the club was covered with foil. I guess they were going for the cool, shinny, out of this world look but it looked more like a baking oven tray or chicken marinated in foil. I am not kidding when I said covered. The walls and collumns are all covered with it, well except for the dancing pole. Music was a mixture of everything from pop, rock, indie, russian music, house. Needless to say, when the russian music comes on, everyone was singing and dancing to it like there was no tomorrow.
Girls were mostly butch looking. Most having the sporty spice look but there were some old school butch wearing suit and tie. I asked one of the locals if there are more butch or femm girls in Kiev, she said there were more femm girls. But she said, almost all girls in Kiev are bisexuals. Good to know, hehe...Odd though, cos the number of femms in the club are outnumbered by the butches...maybe it was just today.
It seems like everyone knew everyone there. A few tried to talk to me, but obviously, that didnt hit off too well since they could barely speak English and my russian/ukrainian is next to nothing. Drinks are quite cheap too. You can get a Gin Tonic for 4EUR. Beer is certainly much cheaper. The workers here are very friendly and accomodating although they do not speak the language.
At about 11pm, the show started. It was a drag queen lip snyching to a russian song and then doing some standup routine. Again, just laugh along eventhough you have no clue what is happening. They even hired a local duo to play some old classic tunes (with the sax and a guitar). It certainly was a nice change compared to some other lesbian places I have been to where this one has live entertainment to boost the crowd....and thats not all. They even had a game. Of course, you have to be brave enough to volunteer to go up to the stage to be a guinea pig, but since evreyone knew everyone, it was not a problem at all to get some participation from the crowd. The mission of the game was simple: 3 girls from the crowd has to come on stage, sit on some sweets which were placed on the chair and guess the number of sweets. Simple enough. But the best part was that, the participants were very sporting. One of the girls actually pulled down her pants so that she could "count better" as she puts it. True enough, she won!! She got the exact amount...wow!
At about 12.30am, I decided to go back coz I had to work the next day. The club apparently closes at 6am every weekend starting from Thurs. Too bad I had to go back. I wouldnt mind staying longer but duty calls!!
Thurs: Special show
Fri: Karaoke and Strip show
Sat: Speacial show
opens daily from 6pm to 10pm on all days except Thurs, Fri and Sat when it closes at 6am.
911 Rating:
Ambience **1/2
Music *
Girls ***
Service ***
Price ***
