Book signing

The weekly English-language rag "What's On Kyiv" had a blurb about a book-signing at a cafe not far from me. The book is called The Steel Barons. It was written by a Ukrainian-American lawyer who has lived in Kyiv since 1991, pre-independence. The book is a fictionalized account of his own experiences in the criminal world and the black market of Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR.

I thought it would be interesting to hear this author, so I invited a couple of other staff members to meet me at the cafe. I got there first and was disconcerted to find myself the only person there except for the author and his press agent, also that the stacks of books were all in Russian and that the author was going to speak in Russian.

But the author, Alex, and his press agent were very friendly. The agent gave me a free copy of his book (in English) and Alex chatted about his life in Kyiv, wanted to know what brought me to the city, what were my impressions of Ukraine, and so on.

It turned out to be a real treat to be the first arrival. As the cafe filled up, he kept bringing his cronies over to our table so they could meet "these interesting people" (no doubt, it helped that I was with the director of the school and his wife). Because of us, he gave his speech in Russian, then in English.

The fictional characters in the book are based on real people, some of whom were at the book-signing. These are men who are enormously rich now, due to the privatization of former Soviet-run industries (ie steel mills, mines, oil). They acquired shares at very low prices, taking advantage of the lawlessness of the post-USSR world.

One of the characters is based on the father of a girl at my school. The girl and her father were both at the cafe. "Now you know how my dad made his money," she said to us on the way out.