On the last Friday night in April, I returned to Ukraine hoping for unseasonable warmth and sunshine, but as my train reached Kiev, the threat of a Russian missile attack loomed overnight. Belarusian KGB chief denounces two Kiev hospitals The decision was made to close Ukrainian soldiers’ barracks and they were forced to evacuate immediately. Air raid sirens rang across the city before the midnight curfew, and once the roads were clear of traffic, the only sounds to be heard were barking dogs and sirens until 4am the following morning.
I hadn’t originally planned to go to Kiev that weekend, but when I saw Anna Reznik, a top Ukrainian bartender working in London, posting about the first bar show being held in the country since the Russian invasion over two years ago, I decided to tag along. SpirnotaThe event, which means “unity” in Ukrainian, aimed to bring together the talents of bartenders from Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro, Vinnitsa and Kiev, and to mark a homecoming for the two women who had left the war-torn country to pursue careers abroad. While able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 60 cannot legally leave Ukraine, Reznik said, Name-shaped barand her friend Anna Morocca is currently Le Syndica The two friends worked in Paris and were eager to return and reunite to share what they had learned while working in two of the world’s greatest bars.
Beyond the scheduled talks and tastings, the weekend also gave me the chance to experience the best of Kiev nightlife with Reznik and Moloka. Kiev is a stronger city than it was in February 2022, when the Ukrainian military was on the defensive. A determined military operation, backed by civilians who picked up assault rifles and, at President Zelinsky’s urging, fashioned homemade Molotov cocktails from whatever bottles they had on hand during a temporary nationwide alcohol ban, kept the city under Ukrainian control throughout the worst of the first six weeks of the offensive. Now, the city’s infrastructure is restored, international retailers are back, and high-speed rail transports alert soldiers east and women and children west, around the clock.
Even though tourists have yet to return, the hospitality industry was finally finding equilibrium. Yes, it was losing local talent to the fate of the West and the frontline, struggling with rising alcohol prices and stagnant wages (not to mention the pressure on staff to raise funds and patrons to donate every time the cheque dropped). But, as I soon discovered, determined creatives were working hard to advance their craft, even while separated from their families, and industrious entrepreneurs were building fantastical party spaces out of sight.
The journey into Ukraine was slow but mostly painless. I flew from New York to Krakow, then hired a car rental company to take me to Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine. The six-hour ride cost about $350, a bargain considering it was about $100 cheaper than an UberX from Manhattan to Atlantic City. After lunch, I set off on the next six-hour journey to Kiev, this time by high-speed train, arriving just after 10:30pm. As I left the Kiev-Pasadilskyi train station, I saw the manager at the entrance to the McDonald’s across the street letting customers out before curfew, so I found a cab and had him take me to the Holiday Inn just as the first air raid sirens started to sound.
After two intense days of travel, I stretched my legs and walked to the show grounds, which took up an entire floor of a bucolic co-working space along the Dnipro River, a 45-minute walk from my hotel across from Zelensky’s presidential palace. The Holiday Inn was more modern and safer than my apartment in Manhattan, and at $50 a night, much more affordable. But I quickly realized I was on the wrong side of the city. As I approached the Mariinsky Palace, the building was surrounded by a perimeter of anti-tank defenses and a spiral of barbed wire that weaved through the greenery of the adjacent park. After a two-mile detour, I caught up with Reznik and Moloka on the second floor of Captain Morgan Station. PornochnikiThe Vinnitsa native presented a booze-infused take on a beloved Ukrainian teatime treat.
Reznik told his story over a sweet-and-sour cocktail smothered in homemade strawberry jam on buttered toast. Normally costing $6 a glass, it’s a nostalgic drink. A native of Donetsk, Reznik was forced to leave his homeland when Russian separatists occupied the east in 2014. He resettled in Kiev and began his career as a bartender in a small speakeasy before moving to Odessa in 2020 to work as a bartender there. Top class FlaconGuests can sample a variety of flavors before choosing their drink. Her fiancé, a chef, was drafted one night early in the invasion, told to pack up their apartment and report for duty. Counting down the 10 months until he was deployed, Ms. Resnick has been honing her skills at the Bauhaus Mixology Laboratory in East London, which she says has been an eye-opening experience.
“Ukraine wasn’t touristy even before the war, and the people who appreciate cool bars aren’t in Kiev or Odessa,” Resnick told me. In Ukraine, she explained, successful bartenders often go into consulting or menu planning, but in London they work alongside newcomers, which inspires them to do better.
Meanwhile, Moloka said the best bar crews are small, family-run operations, but she struggled to find a new one: She left Ukraine a year after the war began when the Kiev bar where she worked closed.
After initially settling in Riga, Latvia, Moloka sought a warmer climate. “It was narrowed down to Spain or France,” she explained. “I didn’t speak either language at first, but I knew a bar in Paris would be better.” Arriving in Paris in April, she quickly discovered that language wasn’t the only barrier to entry into the industry: no one had ever heard of her previous bar. It took 15 applications before she finally landed a job at Le Syndica.
As Resnick, Morocca, and I moved across the floor to the Gordon’s Gin section, they introduced me to Vlado Baranov, the owner of Gordon’s Gin. Faculty The owner of Odessa mixed up a clarified chocolate milk punch and gin with buckwheat butter for me, extolling the merits of the local grain, while explaining that he’d lost half his business and much of his team since the war began. “Now they’re in the top 50 bars in Paris, Milan and Berlin and have a future in the EU,” he said. “But because I’m the owner of my own bar, my future is in Odessa, and I know that Odessa will remain in Ukraine. So now I’m going to keep the business going by hiring like-minded people who share my vision.”
Baranov has maintained a bar tradition in one of the country’s most dangerous regions, where most people are afraid to travel. He recalled that Odessa recently came under 60 drone attacks in one week, and lamented that, unlike Kiev, Odessa is not protected from attacks by missile systems and air raid sirens sound minutes, not hours, in advance.
With no choice but to stay in the country, Baranov has been taking advantage of the opportunities there: He told me he arrived in the city a few days early to bring Fakultat’s menu to industry hotspot Beatnik for one night: “We sold 450 drinks in two hours,” he boasted.
That’s where Reznik, Moloka, and I were headed next. Beatnik was originally a bar in Kharkiv, but relocated to Kyiv in 2019. A staunch speakeasy with a counterculture ethos, Beatnik is one of Ukraine’s last great bars to be recognized by the World’s 50 Best. In 2022 it made it onto the 50 Best Discoveries list, but that was the last time a new Ukrainian bar received such recognition.
The entrance is hidden behind an unmarked door and is on a quiet street, but the place was already packed when we arrived at the start of Moroca’s 8pm shift. An hour later, she had sold out after pouring 100 Parisian-style cocktails mixed with ingredients like roasted coconut-infused Calvados and halva whiskey.
Last orders in Kiev are in the grey zone between 10:30pm and 11pm, so we hurried to our next destination. Fulhammeans “temple.” The bar opened last July, answering a demand for a lively party experience long missing after recruitment posters and injured veterans became less common on the city’s streets. The venue promises hedonistic escape and a space open to all faiths, nationalities, genders and sexual orientations, while constantly broadcasting its dedication to the war effort. When Reznick worked a guest shift in March, all proceeds from the night went to Future for Ukraine, a nonprofit that provides prosthetic limbs to veterans.
We descended into a vast, two-story basement club, clad in black and chrome and lit by dim red lights. Its aesthetic evoked various interpretations of the underworld, and it was filled with revelers who seemed as at home in a John Wick movie as in the afterlife. We slipped through a coat check that seemed bigger than an entire beatnik and drank at the first of a series of little tableaux, each with its own energy. The smoky bar only served cocktails toasted like a flambéed Notre Dame, and guests were also allowed to smoke. We were in the perfect spot to take a leisurely breath and look out over the throbbing chaos of the dance floor below, which, on closer inspection, had its own order. A central bar slammed from all sides, and barbacks were refilling quivering towers of champagne coupes stacked against the disco ball on the ceiling.
I grabbed Rzeznick’s arm and we made our way through the sweaty dance floor to a third bar marked by towering stained-glass windows. Behind us, a fully costumed gospel choir was belting out disco-pop and rap hits, backed by a live band playing a wall-length organ. Their rendition of “I Will Survive” sent the crowd into a frenzy.
We left just before 11pm, too late to go to McDonald’s but not too late to experience the city’s charms after dark. Party-goers paired up and descended into the underground crosswalks that connect most parts of the city. The only place to congregate was in front of a flower shop, where subway gardeners peddled fresh bouquets under halogen lights.
At the end of the week, Reznik, Moloka, and I arrived safely at the western border. I was the only male of fighting age in my vehicle when Polish officials collected our passports and nearly every bag in the car was opened and thoroughly searched for contraband of any kind, including alcohol. Moloka had no problem bringing French alcoholic beverages into Ukraine, but for now the cultural exchange remains one-way.