You're reading: Club Review: Promzona

Promzona
18 Metallistov. Tel: 446-1248.
Open daily 9 p.m. until early morning.

Please excuse me if I don't seem myself. It's just that my head hurts. You see, Promzona, Kyiv's first new club in eons, decided to have its grand opening on May 9 – Victory Day, in case you've forgotten, and a Tuesday at that. The management apparently dug the symbolism. Opening a club full of Soviet kitsch on the ninth of May was too cutesy to resist.

Obviously, they were not thinking too much about us journalists, who would have be at work the next morning writing reviews of the place. Excuse me, but feeding a working journalist Hr 5 screwdrivers does not necessarily make for a good review the next day. But just this once, I'm not going to hold a grudge. The fact is, it's not just any Kyiv club that can hold my attention until 3 a.m. on a Tuesday. In fact, Promzona is the first to ever do that.

It would be brash to say this is the best club in Kyiv. Plenty can change before a club gets established, and more than one club in Kyiv has opened with a bang only to bust big-time. Still, Promzona's opening was so fat that it's hard to see the place busting.

The club, located in an abandoned factory, is huge. Parodies of Commie didactics abound. Giant red banners shout slogans like, “Give the people blow.” The closest thing to a chill-out room is the second-floor library, which features everything from popular Soviet magazines to old encyclopedias and Stalin's collected works.

In the first hall, piles of tires serve as chairs and the tables are made of manhole covers. An army truck by the bar serves as a playground for club goers. Waitresses and bartenders run around in army duds and sailor shirts.

The second room contains a giant dance floor flanked on each side by an old bus. The buses serve as love shacks for people who don't have anywhere else to go. Go-go dancers are positioned at random coordinates throughout the dance hall – atop the buses; hovering around the DJ on the main stage. The gyrating strippers really have no place in such an establishment (What would the Politburo say?).

By Kyiv standards, the music was excellent, although a raver might say it reeks of 3-year-old house.

There were some drawbacks, the most notable being the preposterously annoying emcee. But all these gripes are minor kinks that can easily be worked out. They're meant only as constructive criticism.

If Promzona can continue to draw the crowd it had on its opening night, it will be quite a club. On the other hand, if people don't come, the giant space will seem too cavernous. People ought to show up, however, because the prices are cheap, the atmosphere modish and the club is, for the most part, cool – even if the management is sadistic enough to throw the opening party on a Tuesday night.