The Arizona

I’m back at the Arizona Restaurant in Kiev, Dire Straits on the stereo, cigarette smoke in the air and the Eighties are alive and well.

The story of how I found this place is one of those consultant tales. Back in October 1999, I was bidding on a project for a financial institution. This IFI had lent $ 40 million – a large amount at the time – to a leading drinks company in Ukraine, and was looking for a consultant to monitor the marketing side of the loan. What was the client selling in volume and value terms? Were prices competitive? Would the loan be repaid?

In 1999, Kiev was the wild East. The Russian rouble had devalued in 1998, dragging down many of the regional economies with it. Inflation was north of 10%, the dollar was king, and Leonid Kuchma was President. Life today in Ukraine is in technicolour: back then it seemed to be in washed out shades of grey.

I flew up on a Friday and had my first meeting with the bank at around 16:00. Excellent meeting, great communication first time round with Yurij, who would become a good friend. The problem was, the company could see me on Monday at 11:00.

So, I went back to the Domus hotel, in Podil. The sky was cloudy, rain was promised, and I had to figure out how to spend the weekend without making a mess of things. It’s tough, on your own in a city like Kiev. So, I adopted that useful tactic: I asked the hotel where I could find a good restaurant. And the receptionist recommended the Arizona, which was just down the street on the river.

Back then, the restaurant scene in Kiev was a little dismal. In this desert, Arizona was an oasis. The boys in black didn’t exactly check their guns at the door (like they did at the Tropicana in Almaty), but there were enough VIPs at any given time that overt hostility was frowned upon. The place was a microcosm of society, or at least that part of society that could afford a $10 hamburger.

There were representatives of multinational companies, Ukrainian oligarchs and their stunning companions, American families out for a night on the town, pretending for a moment they weren’t on the Dnieper but maybe in Memphis. There were computer executives, consultants, government officials, customs officers, and salesmen of all sorts. There were bankers and development aid officials. There were students and interns and embassy officials and businessmen. At one point, everyone who was anyone passed through the Arizona.

And me. At the Arizona, I could buy a Herald Tribune, play a round of pool, read a book, hack away on the laptop, order countless pots of coffee and dream of home. While it was raining outside, it was warm – and safe – inside. On that weekend, I probably spent over 16 hours inside the place.

Friday afternoon I met Sacha, an excellent pool player in charge of the pool room. We passed the time, shooting one rack of 8-ball after another while it rained and rained. Gradually the place filled up, and I decided to head back to the hotel. Back in 1999, I could just keep up with him. Later, he got better, and I stopped playing when I moved from Athens to Paris, where the concept of spending time in a pool hall somehow isn’t quite the thing. Sacha left the Arizona sometime in 2004: I’ve lost track of him since then.

The next day I walked around just after lunch, catching the tail end of the lunch crown. I stayed until Saturday night, shooting pool, drinking beer and passing time. Around seven that evening, I was playing pool, when a pale glabrous fellow walked up in a black, ankle-length leather coat and pointed to the cue. We started to play, and that’s how I met “Uzi” and Mikhail and their crew. Uzi was my nickname for him: he looked like that fellow in the Dirty Harry movie who walks into a restaurant and sprays the room with a machine gun. Under his leather coat (remember, this was before The Matrix came out) he looked like he had several. Uzi, reassuringly, worked for a nuclear safety institution.

Mikhail was the leader of the crew. As I learned, he drove a white Mercedes, always had two or three very attractive blondes with him, and knew all the flash places. As we were playing pool that first night, I asked him what he did. He handed over a business card which said “Panther Airways – President”. I asked what “Panther Airways” was about, and got the full story. At the time, sanctions were in full force on a certain Balkan country (or what was left of it). The idea was to lease idle JAT aircraft, base them in Ukraine and rake in the cash big time. I don’t know if this ever materialized or not, but somehow I don’t think Mikhail needed a day job.

From Arizona, we made our way to a Latin place, where the mambo was king. The place was packed, raucous, noisy. Cigarette smoke, vodka fumes and beer slop; sweating dancers and salsa music and crazy lights. Kiev on a Saturday night. Both young and old were oh so happy to be alive, letting go with an insistence that was remarkable. After Chernobyl and glasnost and collapse and independence and hyperinflation, dancing seemed like the one thing everyone could do, in any style, and it was enough to keep moving to loud music to avoid standing still and letting your memories catch up with you. I rode the wave as long as I could, but just after midnight was tapped out and returned to the hotel. The rest of the crew stayed out till breakfast, as I found out the next day.

Sunday was the same routine: walk around Kiev in the morning, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Lunch at Arizona. 8-ball in the afternoon, with Uzi paler than usual. Even nuclear scientists and airline executives need sleep, so it was an early dinner, then bed.

The meeting at the drinks firm went very well on Monday, although I got the impression that they weren’t quite sure why I was there. I sat at a wooden table in the dark as seven or eight executives filed in and sat across from me. They turned out to be the dearest people.

By 15.00, I was through the forbidding lines at Borispol airport. As I passed the final check to board the Austrian flight, the warm smell of coffee wafted up the boarding tunnel. The hostess chirped her Gruessgott in her quaint Austrian accent. I have seldom been so glad to board a flight in my life.

Today of course, Kiev is different, as am I. The Arizona is still there. The décor is the same, the menu is the nearly same. Fewer people though, so I get my favourite table to myself nearly every time. Mark Knopfler steps right up to the microphone…we are the sultans, we are the sultans of swing.