I dined alone, but as I was eating I saw a sign with an arrow pointing towards a staircase. It simply said "Karaoke" in red neon lights. After paying my well-priced tab for what was unmistakably good sushi and Neopolitan pizza, I headed down.
In the basement, there was a small room, about the size of a high school classroom, with a parquet dance floor squarely at its center. Around the room were cheap tables, and event chairs, with mirrored walls and a disco ball in the center light fixture. There was a DJ booth by the stairs.
I sat at a table alone and panned the room. There were two men at a table across the room from me. They were around my age (mid-30s) with dress clothes untucked as if they'd left work and hadn't returned yet. It was maybe 11PM.
In the corner of the room was a table of about 4-5 girls and 3 guys. Roma was sitting there. They all looked like they were in their early 20s, and all of them had liters of local beer in front of them. They looked like a lot of fun, and the girls were gorgeous. I sent over a round of beer for the table.
The DJ knew I was a non-Ruso-speaking foreigner and he cracked jokes at my expense. I knew because the two off-duty suits laughed at me and pointed, and the DJ mixed in some English words in a teasing, kind of smarmy tone.
I fired back with some drunk barbs in English about fucking their mothers. The suits didn't understand, the DJ did (he grinned) and 1/3 of the other table erupted in laughter. "Dude, come over man!" said Roma. I obliged, and he thanked me for the beers.
Roma and one of the girls spoke English and spoke it fluently. They were huge hip-hop fans and actually performed on a karaoke circuit in Kyiv. They flawlessly sang Ludacris, Eminem, Dre, and other classic songs without looking at the lyrics on the screen. The suits sang Ukrainian and Russian hits that gave us time to talk and drink.
After god knows how many drinks, we decided to split. The snow was pouring down in blizzard conditions, and it was about 3:30AM. Roma asked me if I wanted to come to their after-party at his place. He lived with the two other guys. I said "sure", not knowing where I'd be going, or how I'd get back to the hotel.
We jumped in a small Russian-made car and practically slid through the snow-covered empty streets of early Christmas morning Kyiv. After about 15 minutes we started crossing a bridge. I panicked a bit because I saw the lights of the city behind me, and I had no idea where we were going. If I got let out of the car I'd be on an empty bridge outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Christmas, in the snow, with no ability to read or speak the language.
My fears subsided as we reached the other side. Once there, we entered what I can only describe as a dystopian, communist urbanscape. Row after row of 25-story buildings lined perfectly symmetric avenues as far as the eyes could see. We parked in front of one of them and got out to get groceries at the 24-hour store.
Inside, I offered to pay for anything and everything, as the currency had buckled and a basket of groceries would cost me less than dinner in Panama. We bought a bottle of brandy, vodka, peach nectar, cheese, cigarettes, and some locally-made Dorito rip-offs.
Up in the tower, we sat at a kitchen table and drank. We banged the table like a beatbox so the guys could rap in Ukrainian. We ripped warm shot after shot of vodka, then mixed the brandy with warm peach nectar. The cheese and chips were gone within 10 minutes of sitting down.
The girls split after a few rounds, and it was just me and the boys. Roma was translating for me. They told me they were all in the Ukrainian military and out on rotation from the eastern front (Donetsk, I believe).
I remember being drunk and speaking with bravado as if I too could relate to them. I couldn't, but I didn't know what else to say.
The boys told me more about school, and about getting paid to study in Kyiv. The apartment was also paid for by the military, which is why they shared it. None of them grew up there. I can't remember where they grew up, though. We were so wasted we started playing the knife and hand game, which quickly faded to looking for more chips, to no avail.
By the time 6AM rolled around, I knew I'd have to crash there and crash soon. Roma gave me his room, and he grabbed a blanket and pillow to sleep on a small couch in the tenement hallway. The apartment was bare, but his room had hip-hop posters covering each wall. Looked like many of the rooms I slept in growing up.
I woke up about 5 hours later with one of the worst hangovers ever. I looked out the tower window and saw a blanket of snow. I needed to get "home", but had no clue how.
I woke Roma up on the couch and asked what I could do. He called a taxi company and set me up.
He escorted me down to the lobby, waiting for the cab. He went with me into the cab to pay the fixed rate (about $3 USD) and told the driver to text him as soon as we reached my hotel. He said the same to me, and we dapped up and said goodbye.
Slushing back over the bridge into Kyiv I felt like I would vomit. My head pounded but when I saw the city getting closer I got the rush that all travelers get when they finish a small adventure. I felt like I did Kyiv as good as one could do Kyiv in a snowstorm on Christmas eve.
As we approached my hotel on Khreshchatyk Street, I saw a McDonald's. I asked the driver to stop and let me out.
I wanted a hangover burger, Christmas be damned. He didn't understand me and refused with his finger, taking me right to the hotel and calling Roma while I was in the car.
I was so stubborn that I got out, walked back to the McDonald's, and ordered a black bread Bic Mac, hash browns, and two coffees. The only people in Mac D's on Christmas were me and some middle eastern men, who I assume were Muslim and not celebrating the holiday.
I washed down the meal as anyone would with a hangover, feeling guilty after, and making a B-line straight for bed at the hotel. I never saw Roma again, and I hope that he, his friends, and his family are OK.
I'm sure he's fighting on the front as we speak, with the boys from the tower, and hopefully still alive.
