Published: 11:05 AM, 21 September 2026
The Barmaid of Club Freedom
When I first got a proposal from Julio, my Spanish colleague of that time, to visit a nightclub in Kiev, I wasn't sure what to say. I had gone to Russia from an extremely conservative society with a lot of prejudiced notions about nightclubs. However, what happened inside nightclubs remained an unanswered curiosity to me. Earlier on I had only watched people dance in nightclubs in movies and read some salacious details of things for which those places were known to people. So, when Julio asked me to accompany him that late evening, I, a young man that barely crossed twenty, found it difficult to say no.
We had traveled to Ukraine on a short trip. Julio, Vassiliki, Marylyn and me-we all were low on wallets at that time, so going anywhere further turned out to be rather impractical. Therefore, we all unanimously agreed to visit Ukraine which was not so expensive by train from Moscow. The trip was long. It took us over twelve hours to reach Kiev railway station. We had chosen to travel by train so that we would be able to glance over the landscapes we would cross on the trip which was not easy while traveling by faster trains. We had reserved one whole cabin to make sure we would enjoy the trip just on our own. Having a stranger around would be a 'gooseberry game'. That was a great idea to have got the cabin all to us as we figured out later on. We still remember the tour for all the fun we had together. We were a group of 'multinational tourists' (no metaphoric flap). I had gone to Russia from Bangladesh on an official tour. Julio had arrived in Moscow from Spain to carry out a business assignment. Vassiliki, an Athenian beauty with brownish hair from Greece used to work for a beauty shop in Moscow and Marylyn, a Mexican brunette was involved in a Russian medical institution. So, what an extraordinary blend of east and west took place on that trip, readers can easily imagine I believe!
Our train left Moscow at 20.00 pm. As we had earlier on learnt it would take no less than twelve hours, we were prepared to keep tedium away. We rented two rooms in a cheap hotel near the Kiev railway station. We wished we could stuff all of us inside one room to save money but we had to rent a different room for the girls (I am deliberately excluding some details of that night as I don't mean to turn this story into a 'hot' vacation tale with teenage boys, girls, tents, campfire and so on).
Next morning I proposed to my teammates to go out for a walk to explore the city of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The busy streets bore a mixed smell of stale cigarette smoke and dissipating deodorants. It was around 9 am. The sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians. The streets bustled with buses, trams and taxis. We didn't know where to go. We hadn't collected much information about the attractive places in Kiev. We just knew that a wax museum was located in Kiev like that of Madam Tussaud in London. We hired a taxi, crammed ourselves inside it and reached there. Taking a look at the artifacts of the museums more or less impressed us. There were in total sixty wax-made figures of famous people including Ukrainian leaders and sports stars. I was looking for Sergei Bubka and got him there (I mean his wax-made statue). Better to remind the readers, Bubka was one of the world's top-class pole-vaulters during the 1990s. During his time he was well-known for breaking his own records! Neither did we miss out to catch a glimpse of Andre Shevchenko's figure. Shevchenko is the best ever footballer in the history of Ukraine since the post-Soviet time. He is still in boots and one of the best scorers in European club football.
I think I have digressed too far. I started the story with Julio's proposal to take me to a nightclub. He said he had taken a nightclub's address from his Spanish roommate who had been to Kiev before us. I couldn't easily overcome a little bit of trepidation at the thought of exploring a nightclub for the first time. Just to inform the readers, clubs and bars in East Europe are a little less popular with Asians because of intermittent racist attacks on dark-skinned foreigners. Anyway, the thrill of gathering the maiden experience of stepping on to the floor of a nightclub held up my spirits.
The herculean bouncers at the entry of 'Club Freedom' slightly choked up my windpipe. While paying the cover charge (that's what they call the entry fees for discotheque) we all had to drop our passports at the entrance. My teammates probably laughed at the shaky way I handed over my passport to the Ukrainian woman who was sitting behind the iron-grilled counter. As the decorated steel gate opened for us, loud drum and bass music virtually flooded us. Laser lights from the ceiling illuminated the dance floor where the crowd of visitors was still sparse. It was around half-past ten at night and more and more people got in as time went on. A funny thing for me to see there was that some guys came to the club with girlfriends while a lot of other fellows ushered girls on to the dance floor who were totally unfamiliar with them earlier on. So, I corrected a pre-conceived idea of mine that it 's required to visit nightclubs with one's girl or boyfriend because the dance floor abounded with a good number of unaccompanied people of both genders. Anyway, I was not actually devoid of a partner as including me we had two boys and two girls in our group--quite a proportionate one. The shakiness I had while getting in the club was still to leave me alone. So, when Julio and Vassiliki walked straight on to the dance floor, I found a high oval-shaped chair at one corner of the club that sold drinks and sat there revolving my eyes across the amateur dancers and the brisk DJs. Even Marylyn tried to pull me to the dance floor, I gently told that I would prefer to just watch instead of participating in the 'dance and groove'. She looked at me as if asking "what the hell did you come here for if you don't want to dance?!" However, it didn't take Marylyn long to find another guy to dance with. Sitting at the minibar like a 'bottleneck' wouldn't be a nice thing to do. As soon as I thought so, a barmaid approached, "Would you like drinks?" I was caught off-guard, I couldn't answer promptly. Anyway I replied, "Yeah. Do you serve lemonade?" The barmaid waited for a second before answering, probably that's not the sort of beverage people ask for at this time. "Yeah. I will get you one right away". She whisked away and came back within a minute or so. Her English was pretty good. We all had a tough time finding our way around Kiev because of our lingual handicap. We knew Russian, but still our grip on that language was not good enough. The barmaid seemed to be rather convenient at least in terms of verbal communication. It was a relief for me. "You speak English quite well." I said sipping at the lemonade. "I have to" she answered briefly with a smile and moved away once again to attend another customer. I cast an all-out glance to catch her full view but took my eyes off as she turned to me. She had deep black hair braided in a ponytail. Small earrings slightly glinted near her cheeks. She was wearing a red apron on top of an off-white shirt. I thought she was wearing a skirt, but as I stole a look at her lower half, she was donned into succinct blue jeans trousers. That surprised me. Barmaids don't wear trousers. They are supposed to wear miniskirts, at least that was what I had always heard and read in books. I don't have to repeat that was my first entry into a discotheque, but something made me think she was not the type of lasses meant for nightclubs. I shrugged and looked around to see what the other members of my group were doing. They all were in a dancing frenzy, having a wonderful time as it appeared. Like most of the men and women that visit nightclubs, Julio, Vassiliki and Marylyn were also dancing with people they had never seen before. One doesn't have to know dancing to rock the dance floor in a nightclub, I thought. Just some boys and girls seemed to be dancing to the loud music playing around. Most of the others wriggled, spun, frolicked in whatever styles they liked, as if they all were in a bewildered stupor, dancing with or without rhythm amid a musical lunacy!
"Why don't you go to the dance floor?" The barmaid's question rather startled me as I was for a while absorbed in viewing the dancing craze of the crowd. She was slightly leaning across the counter, her apron pressing against its wooden form. Her deep blue eyes were difficult to look into. I didn't know what to say," Actually, I am not a good dancer." I somehow managed to give an answer. Now her smile spread a bit further, "None of these people have any dancing lessons. They come here for fun. Are you alone?" She asked. "No, I am accompanied by three class friends" I pointed to the dance floor. "We have been on a trip from Russia."
"So, your friends dance better than you, right?" She smiled with the humour she put in the question.
I think I blushed a little while replying, "May be. They are used to it. To be very frank, it's my first entry into a place like this".
The barmaid stared at me for a moment, perhaps she noticed how her question turned me rather bashful. "I was kidding. Anyway, are you enjoying your time here?"
"So long I wasn't. But now I am with a blue-eyed beauty across the board." I was not sure how she would react to these words (my friends know how awkward I am at dealing with girls).
"Thanks! May I get you another drink?" The barmaid asked. Probably she didn't dislike my compliments.
"Ok, anything but alcohol please". I said.
Perhaps she found me humorous "How about mineral water?"
I smiled back. "That wouldn't be bad either or some grape juice."
She came back after a while with a glass of grape juice. "Where are you from?" She asked putting the glass down on the counter.
"From Russia." I answered, instantly figuring out my mistake. "I mean, I am from Bangladesh, now in Russia for education."
"Some Indians come here on Saturday nights. Once you were together, right? I mean India and Bangladesh?" She asked."Yeah, long back. We were part of Pakistan too, but have been independent since 1971." I said.
"I know, you fought a war for liberation." She added.
"Great! You know our history." I appreciated.
"Like you know our history too." She answered and smiled again.
The music was getting louder and wilder as the night went on. I feared I would start feeling dizzy. Julio and Marylyn came to the counter for a break, took a couple of drinks and went back to dance. The DJs were changing the music at a regular interval shifting from rock music to rap to salsa and so on. It appeared that most of the people didn't care what type of music was playing, they just continued dancing the same way.
"I admire these people. They don't get tired throughout the whole night!" I said to the barmaid pointing to the crowd.
"Oh really!" She raised her eyebrows.
"I am not dancing, still the wild music gets my head turning around." I said.
"Got it. Nightclubs are not your cup of tea." She now laughed a bit loud. "Your friends should have taken you somewhere quiet like the Kiev botanical garden."
"I knew I would be sitting like this over here. I just wanted to have a glance at a nightclub." I replied.
"So, what's your feeling now?" She inquired.
"Well. Not a bad experience. But it could have been very boring if you didn't give me company. Thanks."
"My pleasure." The barmaid answered courteously. She left me for a few minutes to serve some customers. I was thinking about her while she was away. Are all barmaids sober like her? I don't think so. This girl seemed to be a round peg in a square hole. Barmaids are known for wearing low-cut dresses, putting on extravagant makeups, showing off their buxom shapes and curves. She had none of these characteristics. However, her English impressed me. I was rather relieved finding someone outside my group able to speak in good English. Probably that's the quality her employer took her for.
The more I thought about the barmaid, the more it made me curious. As we left the club later that night, I told my companions about my conversation with the barmaid. They all laughed at me for just talking to a barmaid in a nightclub instead of dancing or having fun. I shared with them that she didn't totally look like a barmaid. Barmaids don't talk like her, they are not so sober in attitude or attires.
Julio knew a Spanish guy named Carlos in Kiev who had been living there for several years pursuing his business. Carlos, as I came to know later on, was a frequent visitor to Club Freedom, the discotheque in which I had met the unusual barmaid. As we dropped in Carlos's home one evening, Julio, just in good humor, told him about my thoughts about that barmaid. Carlos turned to me asking, "Did you ask her name?" I answered, "No, actually I can't get easy with girls that quickly." Carlos laughed. Then he said," I don't know which barmaid you are talking about, I know one girl working for that club who came to Kiev three or four years back from Moscow, Russia. She speaks good English. Her husband was in Russian army but he got killed in the war going on in Chechnya. After her husband's death she found it hard to continue living in an expensive city like Moscow. So, she moved to Kiev with her son. As far as I know her mother lived in Kiev because this is the place where she was born. But I don't know whether her mother is still alive." Carlos paused for a while, giving me these details.
I was left wordless. Did I meet the girl Carlos just told me about? My thoughts were in tumult. Carlos's question interrupted my thinking stream, "Still talking to that girl in your mind, bro?" He said winking at me. I smiled, not saying anything.
Was it just monetary constraint that drove a girl out of Moscow and placed her in Kiev? Or did she leave Russia because that was the country where she had a home in which she lived with her husband and her kid and the country that had sent her beloved husband to war to get him killed? Was she being tormented there with haunting memories of her husband, who was once on her side at home, in the same room looking outside the window at the sky above? I kept on thinking, inconclusively.
Mahfuz Ul Hasib Chowdhury is a contributor to different English newspapers and magazines.
The writer is also a Commonwealth Open University Fellow.
