[BCZalgyris]

First of all I am sorry for the length of this thread but I don't want to forget all the details and since many of our forum members are African American or from Africa I thought they might be interested in reading this. Plus I am a sucker for a good story, which unfortunately I experienced this trip. Since no thread here dealt specifically with Racism in Kiev I thought I will provide to you guys my observations, both good and bad that we experienced during our trip. 100% of what I write in this article is the truth and none of the "keyboard jockey" stuff or rumors that unfortunately pervade these forums.

As some of you in these forums know I took my long-awaited trip to Kiev, Ukraine from March 14th - March 19th and a few more days traveling Ukraine via train (although that is for another story here) to Warsaw and passing Lviv. I went out Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday in Kiev. I did some sight seeing during the day, and did a special tour of Chernobyl and Prypiat forbidden zone. The rest of the sightseeing was done courtesy of local female's we met who volunteered to be our tour guides. (imagine having this type of friendliness in USA, hell would freeze over before this happened).

I must have slept an average of only 3 hours a day although I recall also staying awake for a period of about 50 hours straight surviving off a brutal mixture of Chernihivkse (UA beer), Red Bull and Vodka’s, God Knows what local energy drinks, good and bad diet of Pelmeni, and finally many dates at coffee shops where I looked like a zombie and could barely stay awake to entertain my kind Ukrainian hosts.

Originally I had been planning on going in February but due to the cold blizzard like conditions in EE at that time I delayed it till March. Unknown to me this March has been one of the coldest on record and almost every day we stayed in Kiev we experienced January/February type conditions with high wind, severe cold, and snow in the morning.

The красавици were somewhat absent on the streets and the few we saw wearing high heel shoes and short skirts (yep, we saw that even in freezing temperatures) seemed to be in a hurry to escape the cold. Minimal day-game was done from my end and most was night-game and date-game.
I went with two American friends, one an average looking white guy and another a Nigerian-American friend. We are all in our late 20s/early 30's and successful in our fields. In terms of looks none of us look like models and I myself am probably only a 5.5 (looks are not critical in Ukraine as most UA guys are not lookers themselves).

My black friend is a big, strong guy, and looks somewhat similar to a younger version of Samuel Jackson. No one messes with him back home in Washington,DC and Baltimore bars and clubs and he has come out on top in most confrontations I've seen. In the Washington, DC & Baltimore area he constantly get's one-night stands and picks up women of different ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds so I am throwing this out for you guys just so you know that he was not a beta male nor someone who has problems with social anxiety or approaches.

Both my friends knew next to zero Russian except for the common greetings before flying into Ukraine and had done almost no research. They really wanted to go to Poland but at my insistence decided to spend a week in Kiev. As my Russian fluency is quite high I ended up being a translator and saving my black American friend from further trouble.

All three of us took different flights/airlines into Kiev but were arriving on the same day. My African-American friend took an Aeroflot flight and arrived about 2 hours earlier than we did. The "problem" with Aeroflot is that they are extremely generous with their drink service (and my friend ended up sitting next to a local woman so temptation to socialize and drink for him was high) so by the time my black friend arrived at Boryspil he was already wasted.
I never recommend any foreigner take a taxi from Boryspil Airport to Kiev unless you are in a hurry and have plenty of disposable income as you will get ripped off unless you have excellent negotiating skills and the swagger to pretend like you’ve been there before. Expect to pay around 220 UAH (if you speak good Russian-Ukrainian and can pass for a local and not tourist/business traveler) or roughly $28 to city centre. These prices are going up exponentially higher due to the current energy crisis in Ukraine. At worse you can get the official “Kalashnikov” taxi for no more than 280UAH with a driver who speaks some English. My black friend could not negotiate anything and was ripped off for 480UAH to be taken to Kreschatik street and Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, where we stayed. We stayed in the best part of the city right across from the Arena City centre and all the nightlife there. Below is the view from our balcony:


If you do not look and act local I am afraid to tell you that you will be ripped off sooner or later in the city. It will start off with the taxi ride's so always negotiate in advance the fare.
TIP: For you guys on these boards, just go outside the airport, and look for several flybus’s (you’ll know them as they have a picture of an airplane pilot on them and white banner in the front of the bus window with destinations in Cyrillic. The bus driver did not speak any English, so brush up on your Cyrillic or just have a map and show them the centrail train station metro…as that’s the furthest the bus will go into the city). I caught the flybus for 25 UAH, or roughly $3. Sure, I was stuck in city traffic for a while, and the bus went to the central train station and not downtown but the metro was a paltry 2 UAH from there. Just make sure you do not carry too much luggage with you into the metro as it can be very hard to get by as Kiev metro is always jammed!

After my black friend checked in he immediately proceeded to hit up the cafes and bars on Kreschatik Yл. just like he does in USA, to get buzzed and chat up the ladies. Situational awareness for a minority person in Kiev cannot be under-estimated! It is key to everything one does and under no circumstances should you get drunk on the streets as that will put a bullz-eye on you. By the way, when I am referring to minority I do not mean the Arab, Turkish looking guys as there are plenty of them on the streets and some can pass for Ukrainian's anyways. I am talking about the complete lack of visible black minorities from Sub-Saharan Africa or “African”-Americans. During my whole trip I only saw a few African students in the metro system, and a light-skinned black bartender at Club Decadence (which by the way might be the most “exclusively” club in Kiev but at the same time most overrated and overpriced. PM if you need detailed info on it).
From here my friends recollections are hazy but he remembers being invited to an alley café (off of Kreschatik) by a middle-aged local, accepting the invitation as he seemed friendly, going there (by the way almost all Cafes in Kiev serve alcohol) and drinking Vodka with him. My friend had a jacket with him and $250 USD, credit card, and Droid smart-phone. He left his jacket by the table to go to the bathroom. From here his memory is hazy as he was blacked out. He remembers bits and pieces and believes that his drink might have been spiked. As he was coming back he noticed that the local guy was rifling through his pocket’s, as he confronted him the local guy(s) spilled water in his face and a fight ensued and somehow ended up in the alley. Although my friend tried to hold down the local guy, he escaped with the wallet and cell-phone. The commotion brought out 3 street cops who were patrolling nearby and even though they saw the local guy run away they did not pursue. When cops arrived they spoke no English and were just standing around and laughing at my friend. By the grace of God I happened to come across this commotion as it was literally about 2 blocks from my apartment and my second friend and I had been searching for our friend now for over an hour, looking in the local drinking establishments. I spoke to the cops in rapid fire Russian and they pretended not to know what happened to my friend. When I asked them to help they acted indifferent and asked for an eye-witness (even though they had seen the thief escape). I asked my friend which café this theft had happened at but he was barely coherent and could not remember.
At this time a crowd had formed around us, including some shady character’s re-appearing from the protest tents (if you guy’s don’t know, there’s been a tent city on Kreschatik street for several years now protesting the illegal imprisonment of the previous president of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko). The whole scene is reminiscent of Occupy Wall Street protests. The reason why I mention this is because I saw near homeless characters around that area drinking in public at night and also seeking shelter from the cold by the underground passageways so one has to be careful of their surroundings. This is also where my friend was “ambushed” by the local guy.

Since I could not come up with any witnesses and the cops were becoming agitated as a crowd was forming, including a couple babushkas who started yelling at me that “Нам не нужны люди, как он” translated as “we don’t need people like him”. The cops started saying that my black friend was drunk on the street . It did not help matters that my friend was yelling at this time and certainly did not look like a sober person. Imagine a big black guy, all disheveled after a fight with bloody knuckles and a busted chin, yelling and swearing at the cops in English on the Kreschatik sidewalk and that was my friend. This time I realized that the situation was getting out of control and knew that we would probably run into the same cops again as this was next to our apartment building. I sarcastically thanked them for watching over him and left. Should I have pursued the matter further and reported it to the US Embassy? Probably yes, but since my friend has a government clearance which could have been endangered we decided against pursuing the matter further with the authority's.

On subsequent days as we would walk around town we saw more subtle signs of racism. For example under the Independence square an old guy told my friend to Shut-up in English. On several occasions, going into clubs face-control tried to charge us more and I believe it was due to my black friend. At the clubs my friend got zero success even though he did multiple approaches and was dressed to impress. Except for a few instances where he chatted up girls who seemed normal later on he would find out they were semi-pro’s/pro’s who asked him to buy them overpriced drinks. Going against my wishes and lacking moral judgment the only place where “he had luck” was at a Kiev strip club where after paying 600UAH he was able to go town…
When my black friend would approach girls with Privet, Dobriy vecher, Как поживаете and then ask them if they spoke English they were indifferent and on several occasions I would see them just walk away. He did have some luck on the dance floor but it never escalated further. The exotic factor did not work for him (unlike in Warsaw, Poland where he did better) and the lack of language skills posed a major challenge for him. I would put the knowledge of English at no more than 40% in Kiev.

As some of you guys might know Vodka Bar, Shooters, DeCadence, Mafia Café and the other night places by city center overflowing with foreigners and sex tourists is not indicative of the fluency of the language knowledge, nor the quality of the girls. Go off the beaten path and you will see a completely different side of Kiev with even friendlier women who are looking for relationships and not ONS. Invest in them, take them out on date's, buy them some подарки and muffle your expectations for the short term. They do not move fast and the culture is more conservative than in USA. Level of conservatism differs from girl to girl but rest assured that if she's from the suburbs and hasn't traveled much she will be conservative and will expect date's before anything more happens. It took my white friend a second 5 hour date with me running near perfect translation with a Ukrainian 9 for him to get a makeout and my friend has game back home. Believe me, in the long term you will be rewarded 100x just don't expect to go to Kiev for a weekend and immediately be treated like a king just because you're from UK or USA as those days ended 10 years ago!

Getting back to my observations one cannot imagine the sight if you go to a club a couple miles off the city center where more locals and fewer sex tourists hangout, which is what me and my friend did when 3 stunning beauties approached us at night as we were talking in loud English lost by OlimpiyskiyStadium. After brief exchange of formalities and my conversation in Russian about that nights happening hot-spots they took us to a club that had an 80s dance party. The ratio was about 70% women, none of them fat and almost none unattractive. Here's some of the stuff we saw in the less touristy clubs. I truly felt like I stepped in heaven with model's surrounding me from all directions.



This was also a night when my African-American friend decided not to go out as he was still recovering from the theft and fight and was becoming paranoid at this time. All night we worked the NY angle and when shit-tested by locals (make sure you have a good back story and be able to prove it as sex-tourism is ruining Kiev) told them that we were here for work. It helped that my company had a branch in Kiev and I had memorized the address. The shit test always came up whether it was on a first, second or third date. By the end of the trip my skype contact list was flooded with girlfriend requests. As I do not believe in ONS I never tried to to go for that although the scene at Arena Beer House around 5am as Decadence has closed down can be one of wonder. Girls all around the bar just sitting and waiting for foreigners to chat them up. Some of them are pro's but other's are just desperate as I saw that after talking to a good-looking 36 year old women with a kid who was almost begging for me to help her out and making all the moves on me whereas I just sat stiff at the bar trying to get rid of my hangover. If you've had a hard time meeting women in the clubs just go there, throw some English game and mention a couple cities like Miami, New York, London, and you're good to go. You can thank me later.


One of the hardest things to do in UA is to keep your standards up, as every hour you spend talking to someone whose a 6 you realize you could have been talking to an 8. I even asked a girl from the upstairs strip club/cabaret who had just gone downstairs to relax after her "work day" to have a drink at my place. I was not serious and just wanted to see where it would lead. After realizing that we were staying in the city centre one minute walk from Arena their eyes almost popped out of their heads with excitement. Alas, my 6th sense told me that this was too good to be true and I declined.

Important note for foreign guys…if you want to make a great impression in Kiev drop all the evening’s you spend in the gym and instead invest some of that time in learning how to dance well. The girls I spoke to did not care about how buff the guy was, what they cared about the most was the guy making a good impression on them by dancing well and then having good style and fashion. I was constantly being asked about my suit in the clubs and what type of dress was popular for guys. Although I wore a mid-range Macy’s suit I always claimed I had a Hugo Boss. It’s funny the attention that a small lie will get you.
You do not need to be John Travolta but knowing some stand-up dancing like house dancing, popping,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wl5OKHl-d0 or even fast swing will work wonders as on average Ukrainian guys don’t know how to dance and spend too much time standing around and socializing in groups while drinking. The turks and the rich expats from Western Europe are even worse as they frequently order table service for 2,000 UAH+ (going rate at Vodka bar the Monday night I went there) and just sit at the table inviting the local girls. It’s a sad site as the girls who came to their table’s seemed bored as hell while my buddy and I were having the time of our life on the dance floor. Many of the expats and minority tourists that I saw flooding all the tables and crevices by the bars also made few approaches on the dance floor.

I observed that very little male/female interaction happens between the sexes unlike the hell of Washington, DC where you’d see dance floors flooded with testarone and a few lucky guys with girls grinding on the floor, in Kiev clubs I saw very little of that. Many girls seemed to go to clubs just to dance and you could tell by their eye contact they were desperate for guys to approach and grab their hands to dance which we obligingly did.

If you're a bad dancer like me and realize that the girl is outmuscling you on the dance floor, make sure you have some cigarette's and a cool lighter and ask her for a smoke. GManifesto has written a great article about that but in Kiev this one move will take you to a completely different level as even young 19/20 year old girls who were straight out of Victoria's Secret were smoking in clubs. (I personally am against smoking but when an 8-9 approaches you for a cigarette you gotta compromise!).

My swing/salsa dancing white American friend was able to meet a 9 within minutes of entering Avalon Club (great place about a mile off the city center, recommend to all expat’s to check this out and not waste time on city centre clubs), go on 2 dates with her and now she’s interested in coming to USA. Good times.

As a final note I want to end this by saying that I do not discourage African/African-American guys from visiting Kiev but your expectations have to be in-check. If you play GManifesto custom-suited game, smoke (most women in Kiev smoke and will ask you for a lighter), do not get drunk and have situational awareness, and are with a local or know some Russian (I cannot emphasize this enough), and pick the more international clubs like D’Lux I am sure you will do quite well, however if I had to pick between Kiev and Warsaw (which we went to on this same trip and where my black friend almost dragged two brunette’s to the apt. same night) the latter would be better.
For me as a guy of Eastern European descent Kiev opened up a lot of doors. My confidence had been nearly crushed in Washington, DC (as some of my older posts indicate) and I was feeling just like the guys in Toronto, Canada. I had given up all hope of finding a GF by going to local bars and clubs and had resorted to sad singles events. Kiev gave me a shot of adrenaline and I am going back this summer even stronger when day game will be possible.