The Eh! Team

By Walter Kish

Kyiv is crawling with foreigners.  Walking through the city’s downtown area these days, it is not uncommon to hear to hear English, German, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Urdu or any number of foreign languages.  Of course being the nation’s capital one would expect a large number of diplomatic personnel there, but the vast majority of the foreign content is provided by tourists and people doing business of one form or another.  The political instability of the past few years has done little to discourage the steadily growing stream of students, tourists, researchers, adventure seekers, diasporan Ukrainians, missionaries, businessmen, investors and dreamers of all sorts.

Because many of these foreigners have limited or no local language capability, they tend to hang out together in the off hours in the same well-established restaurants and watering holes.  In the downtown core, the most well known and popular places are the Baraban (The Drum), the Golden Gate, Arena City and, of course, O’Brien’s.  I doubt there is a single capital city in the world that doesn’t have a “genuine” old-fashioned Irish pub such as O’Brien’s.

Amongst these foreign hordes are a significant number of Canadians and the best place to meet them is, interestingly enough, the pub at the Canadian embassy.  I use the word pub somewhat loosely, in that this establishment only operates every second Friday and is not a commercial enterprise, but a labour of love run by a social committee of volunteer embassy staff.  Nonetheless, it is a thoroughly enjoyable and lively place where, if you are a Canadian, you are guaranteed to meet someone you know from back home or, if you don’t, you will know more than a few people by the time the evening is over.

Every second Friday from, six to nine p.m., the pub takes over the large embassy boardroom, which is colourfully festooned with the flags of all the provinces and territories.  In one corner is a formal bar well stocked with draft and bottled beer as well as wine and a reasonable selection of harder stuff.  There is a good assortment of munchies available and half-way through the evening they have pizza from Kyiv’s best pizzeria (Vesuvio’s) delivered and sold by the slice.

If you are a Canadian and in Kyiv on a Friday when the pub is in operation, then this is the place to be. Here you will meet an interesting and sometimes eclectic bunch of ex-pat Canadians and their guests.  This past Friday was fairly typical.  Holding court at one table was Liubko Markevych (originally from Edmonton), one of the first Canadians to settle here in the early nineties.  Back then he was working for CIDA, Canada’s foreign aid agency; currently he heads a United Nations project that is involved with the ecological reclamation of the Dnipro River basin.  At the same table with him was Myron Spolski, (originally from Winnipeg) who opened up the first pizza joint in Kyiv also in the early nineties and now supplies the embassy with pizza for its pub nights.  Sitting nearby was Iryna Balan from Winnipeg who is currently touring Ukraine with an exhibition honouring the father of Ukrainian dance groups in North America, Vasyl Avramenko.

Other Canadian ex-pats I ran into during the course of the evening, included John Shmorhun, Director for Eastern Europe for Dupont; Taras Soltys who is heavily into Ukraine’s oil exploration sector; Roman Sawycky of Toronto’s Northland Power company who have been involved for almost 15 years on power-generation projects in Kyiv; Bill Atamanchuk, a PR consultant originally from Montreal; George Melin, head of a large Mississauga-based software company that has set up a software development office here in Kyiv;  Victor and Tamara Koszarny, whose family firm imports Ukrainian champagne, beer and vodka into Canada, and Christina Maciw, also originally from Montreal, who is a partner in a large Kyiv law firm. 

I should also add that the pub is also frequented by non-Canadian guests who just happen to find it a fun place to be.  On this particular Friday I ran into Roman Shwed, a retired American architect from Florida, who came to Kyiv many years ago, fell in love with the place, married a delightful and brilliant local woman, and amongst other things is host of a weekly radio program on Ukraine’s national public radio service.  Martyn Wickens, a Brit, who runs an executive search practice here in Kyiv, also dropped in to enjoy the beer and convivial atmosphere.

Also present, needless to say, were many of the resident embassy staff and their significant others. This included the Ambassador Abina Dann, undoubtedly the most approachable, charming and friendly Canadian ambassador Ukraine has ever had, and I can say I have known most them.  Her Eh! Team that run these pubs should be commended for their efforts at creating one of the more hospitable and interesting venues for spending a Friday night whether you are a Canadian or just want to be one for an evening.  If you are in town, call the embassy at (044) 590-3100 to find out when the next pub night takes place.