River Palace, the legendary “den of iniquity,” was removed from the riverbank in mid-2010, changing the Kyiv nightlife scene dramatically.
For years, River Palace was one of the most recognizable landmarks in Kyiv. It stood on the banks of the Dnipro River, next to the metro, as part of an esplanade of establishments. Internet searches on Kyiv nightlife put it near the top. Tens of thousands saw it every day while passing by on the metro, going on boat tours or in cars. Many also crossed its threshold, although getting anyone to admit that they went there was notoriously difficult. For all the billing as a nightclub, restaurant, or casino, River Palace always was purely a brothel.
Then, one day in late July 2010, River Palace was gone, towed away to Ukrainka (around 50 kilometers from Kyiv), and unlikely to return. So what happened to all the women who worked there? Or the gentlemen who “never went there” a couple of times a week? This Kyiv Post freelance writer catches up with some of them, and takes a look at how the demise of the “pleasure palace” affected Kyiv.
River days
River Palace set up business in 1995, the first of what became a strip of establishments on the Dnipro riverside, when post-Soviet Kyiv was starting to see tourist booms fueled by lower-than-Western prices and comely ladies. There was a bar, restaurant and small casino, but the room almost every visitor went for was the club room. This comprised a dance floor flanked by tables and women looking to hire out their services for that evening. While never legal in Ukraine, prostitution was largely ignored in the 1990s and early 2000s, as newly independent Ukraine was grateful for whatever tourists it could attract. River Palace soon saw itself joined by several other venues as the Dnipro promenade became a somewhat seedy but thriving embankment.
Entering “the boat” was an interesting experience, as you descended under a covered gangway, before crossing a small gangplank onto the slightly rickety, 62-meter long riverboat. Admission was always fairly reasonable, running at $10 on most nights. The spectacle was both the women themselves, gussied up and some nights in the hundreds, and their clients-to-be. The gentlemen were an interesting combination of types. There were the pros, seasoned business travelers who went solely to find company for the evening. There were rookies, struck dumb by such a place, affixing their gazes to their shoes while working women circled. And finally there were the gawkers who went just to take in the whole giddy spectacle of it all.
Changing days
There wasn’t anything like River Palace. Yet, in the mid-part of the 2000s, the winds started to blow against the floating bordello. A 2005 law imposing tougher sentences for human trafficking and coerced prostitution may not have been strongly enforced, but it marked a change in attitudes as Ukraine sought to align itself more closely with Europe.
River Palace had since the start been an unofficial brothel, and thus unregulated in that sphere. However, management did make efforts to keep things fairly civilized, with no overt presence of pimps or narcotics. The women were freelancers, paying an admission fee at the door but keeping their earnings themselves. Most were career prostitutes, although on any given night there was a chance you would find a non-professional there for a quick injection of cash. Certainly their prices, Western as they were, were appealing given that a woman could potentially earn in a couple of nights what she may make in an entire month as a waitress.
The writing, though, had been on the wall for River Palace since Ukraine won the bid to host the Euro 2012 football championship five years ago. Ukraine could not allow the global attention to fixate on River Palace.
It is still unclear how much the final removal had to do with policy, politics or unsavory business interests. The place is reported to have changed hands in early 2010, from Moscow-based Ritzio Entertainment Group to new owners said to be less inclined to pay police protection fees.
In any case, the palace, which had enjoyed a light touch from the police in its early years, started finding itself the subject of more frequent raids. In these raids, the women would be bundled into vans and taken off, in scenes reminiscent of the Soviet classic Interdevochka. Joining them would be any foreign visitors without their passports. Needless to say, this impinged on the atmosphere. When the adjacent restaurant, Murakami, was removed in early July, River Palace’s fate seemed sealed and, on July 28, River Palace served its final customer.
Police vs. the Palace
About 50 police officers arrived on the morning of July 29, 2010, apparently without any documentation, but citing a letter from the river administration. They would be making an urgent inspection and the dozen-plus staff on board all needed to abandon shop immediately. A couple of staff members, rather inebriated, resisted, and were carted off to jail. Police moved quickly, cutting off all power and setting about detaching the ship from its moorings.
Eyewitness reports describe the removal as efficient and rapid, with little thought given to the preservation of the vessel. By mid-afternoon River Palace was towed away under the Metro Bridge and out of Kyiv. There are reports of women and clients turning up that evening only to find a walkway leading nowhere.
Press releases from the prosecutor’s office after the event presented the official position that the quayside was not suitable for docking vessels, and that the proliferation of floating venues there was unregulated, potentially damaging the riverfront, with the gangways acting as potential death traps for clients.
Although some of the other boats once forming the Dnipro entertainment embankment can be found around Kyiv, River Palace will likely never be seen in the capital again. And yet, what of those who went there for work and pleasure?
Using only their first names, this Kyiv Post freelance writer interviewed men and women who frequented River Palace and asked how life has changed since the final tow two years ago.
Masha – I used to go there most nights of the week. I’m a single mother and being a “working girl” is how I feed my children. River Palace was an ideal place to work – safe, no problems from the management. Plus, the guys came there looking for prostitutes. Since River Palace left, things have been very different. I have a few clubs where I work, but it’s unreliable. Quite often people aren’t looking for prostitutes there, and if we look for clients too assertively, management can be heavy-handed. I can definitely say that things have been tougher for me since it was taken away.
Evgenia – I worked there at the start of my career, so I have some nostalgia for the place. However, the world changes and business changes, so you have to look for new opportunities. Working in such an environment could be a bit depressing. There were always a lot of girls and fewer guys, so they could be a bit unkind sometimes, reject you, just walk on to the next girl. And there was quite a lot of competition among the girls – cattiness and so on. We were all lined up, waiting to be picked, based purely on appearance. Now I do my business online. It’s much simpler. I do all the negotiating from my computer, then go and meet the client with everything agreed. Sometimes I pass by where River Palace was on the river, and think of it, but I don’t really miss the place.
Yulia – In an unpredictable business, it was a surer thing than most. Taking out advertisements with a phone number or handing out business cards around town is unreliable, and can take a lot of time and money. With River Palace you could go most nights, and as long as you looked good, there was a decent chance you’d find a client. Also, you could see the guy, size him up a bit and work out how much to charge him. If he was a gentleman, he’d buy you a drink while negotiations took place, and be staying in a nice hotel somewhere. Sometimes it could be as high as $500; other times as low as $100 – it all depended on the guy, and how much I needed the money. Since River Palace left, I’ve worked mostly from massage parlors and bars and clubs around town. But it’s not as reliable, and I miss the security of the boat.
Dmitry – “It was a fabulous place. Whenever I had business contacts in town, I’d take them there and just watch their eyes light up. They’d never seen anything like it before. Some of them got hooked and every time they came back to Kyiv, would demand I take them there. I’m sure some of them found reasons for business trips, just for that. I miss the place, it was a lot of fun, there’s nowhere similar now.”
David – “I liked it, and would go there from time to time. However, towards the end of its days, it was starting to feel like an anachronism, and strange that such a place would be allowed to exist. One thing that I really appreciate, in retrospect, is how much it gathered all the prostitutes in one place.”
Ray – “I’ve been in Kyiv long enough to remember when the River Palace first opened and, over the years, I went there off and on. It was funny, among visitors, sometimes you’d see guys in a professional capacity who you’d seen before on the boat. You’d kind of exchange a knowing glance at each other, and hope that it would help rather than harm your prospects of doing a deal! Its removal is kind of an ironic situation. On the one hand, it would appear to have cleaned Kyiv up and it certainly improved the appearance of the riverbank. On the other, nowadays you can go into the toilet of an expat pub and find a prostitute waiting to offer you her services. When River Palace was there… you went looking for them, rather than them for you.”
Graham Phillips is a freelance writer living in Kyiv
