Kyiv’s HVLV bar made it, lost it, made it again

Among Kyiv bars, HVLV is the comeback kid. It has shut down twice, but always returned better and stronger.

Founded by students in 2015, HVLV — pronounced Khvylovy — is a beloved watering hole. Since its launch, it has transformed from a do-it-yourself, friends-only basement pub to a trendy venue for free-spirited parties — “a friendly pub and club.”

Early on, the owners decided to run the bar based on freedom and honesty. Eventually, these core values helped them find HVLV’s bigger mission: to advance Ukrainian culture.

Last month, HVLV started its fifth year by adding a second floor with one of the best sound systems in Kyiv to hold parties and shows by Ukrainian musicians. Meanwhile, the basement will remain a cozy speakeasy showcasing the bar culture.

“We’ve always wanted to move toward developing culture, but there were many obstacles,” co-founder Andy Yankovskyi, 26, told the Kyiv Post. “And now that we have finally opened this new space, we can fully express this idea.”



First basement

HVLV appeared accidentally. Four students of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy needed a place to hold an afterparty for a film festival they organized, so they rented out a basement in the central Podil district.

The site was so neglected that they couldn’t get it ready in time for the party. But they decided to turn it into a bar for future events. While they were laying a brick wall, one said that it came out “wavy.” Thus, the bar got its name: “Khvylovy,” meaning “wave-like.”

Khvylovy is also the surname of Mykola Khvylovy, an iconic writer from the 1920s generation known as the Ukrainian Executed Renaissance. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, he grew disillusioned with the new government and criticized its violent methods in his most famous short story “I Am (Romance).” Soviet repressions against his friends drove him to suicide in 1933.

The HVLV bar organized its first-ever party for friends in February 2015, calling it “I Am Romance.”

“We only share this name with Mykola Khvylovy,” Yankovskyi says. “But since he did everything honorably, we also try to do everything so as not to be ashamed. If you take that name — then please live up to it.”

And so they did. What started as a dirty basement became a meeting place for students, their friends and others attracted by the name.

The friends invested around $4,000. They managed the bar themselves. The budget grew to some $30,000 and, most importantly, a community formed around HVLV.

But all of this ended when the bar had to vacate the premises because of a dispute with its landlord. After four months of work, HVLV found itself on the street in May 2015.

Hitting rock bottom

The owners looked for a new location. It took a while, but in March 2016 they found another basement in Podil. The new site was smaller, but better located. The bar remains there to this day: 18 Verkhnii Val Street, some 100 meters from Kontraktova Ploshcha metro station.

That’s when Yury Pogrebnyak, a regular at the old bar, became a co-owner. Pogrebnyak, a tech specialist, suggested drawing up a set of guiding principles. They selected six values: freedom, responsibility, honesty, innovation, mutual respect and development.

“With these values, it has been easier for us to move forward and even correct our vision for where we’re going and why,” Pogrebnyak, 28, says.

HVLV hired permanent staff and trained them to follow these values. Once co-founder Dasha Minasenko left a paper rainbow flag on a bar counter. When she found it in a trash bin, she had a serious talk with the bartender who threw it away. Later, the whole team took a trip to Berlin, where they visited LGBTQ-friendly clubs.

“A month after we returned from Berlin, this bartender joined a photoshoot wearing a dress and make-up,” Minasenko, 26, says. “It’s a vivid example of how we grew with our team, and our team grew with us.”

Freedom is the defining value. The owners say guests can do whatever they want as long as they don’t interfere with others: invent a cocktail, dance on the bar counter, sleep on the sofa or suggest an idea for a party.

HVLV has organized parties where anyone could put on their playlists or take the in-house guitar and perform. The bar has provided a free stage for local musicians, DJs and poets.

At the time, HVLV identified itself as a “bar for friends only,” but became hostage to that concept. While the bar started to operate regularly and hired permanent staff, there were times when few visitors came.

“There was a month when we had to delay salaries, and we had huge debts,” Yankovskyi says. “We hit rock bottom, where we had to sit down, think it through and start off again.”

Reaching the ceiling

By spring 2018, two of the original founders left the team. The three co-owners now are Andy Yankovskyi, Dasha Minasenko and Yury Pogrebnyak. They say that HVLV has turned into a full-time job: Yankovskyi mostly works on content, Minasenko is in charge of the bar and Pogrebnyak does their books.

In 2018, the bar had to reinvent itself. Instead of close-knit shows by friends and for friends, HVLV started hosting free music parties that attracted more visitors. That summer, the owners opened a successful outdoor stage on the patio above the bar.

With the increase in visitors and profits, the owners had to renovate the bar and increase capacity. They closed HVLV for repairs in August 2018, hoping that it would take about a month. But it took over three months and cost three times as much as the owners could afford.

So HVLV launched a crowdfunding campaign hoping to raise Hr 420,000 (or $15,440). But they managed to raise only a tenth of that sum, so they borrowed money. But it still wasn’t enough, and the renovation was a disaster.

“There was one moment when Andy said, ‘I can’t do this. I don’t believe we can finish it,’” Minasenko says. But that very day two positive things happened: Workers who were renovating the bar agreed to accept a payment delay and the friends also found an investor.

That investor was Andreas Boesch, a Swiss citizen who spends about half of his time in Kyiv. Boesch, 57, lent them the rest of the sum, which was later converted into an investment. He is now one of the bar’s seven investors.

“They are the new generation of young people who are proud to be here, who are taking responsibility and love what they do — this merited support,” Boesch says. “The place went from a friendly bar to a good-size business that employs over 20 people.”

Second Stage

The HVLV owners say that the bar had a split personality. One HVLV had more casual hangouts with live and recorded instrumental music. The other HVLV gravitated toward crowded electronic music parties. Both formats have their charms, but they couldn’t fit in one place.

So when the owners got a chance to rent the ground floor above their basement bar, they decided to split the two formats. The basement is the place for chill, soft music and old-fashioned “bar magic.” The floor above has electronic and live music parties and a fast-paced bar with cocktails and craft beer.

The owners refer to their new place as “the Second Stage” — like the second stage of the rocket that drives it onward with new engine power. They gave it one of the best custom-designed sound systems and on-tap bar systems in Ukraine.

Besides electronic music parties on Fridays and Saturdays, HVLV’s Second Stage will now host experimental live music shows on Sundays and sometimes before the Saturday parties. Every Thursday, HVLV will give a free stage to young Ukrainian artists in a series of shows called Kontrabands.

HVLV has plans to improve Ukrainian bar culture, too. They were among the first to stop using plastic straws, and now want Ukrainian craft breweries to start delivering draft beer in reusable steel kegs instead of disposable plastic ones.

Their next objective is to become a cultural hub. “We can do a lot more,” co-founder Yankovskyi says. “I think we’re closer to the beginning than the end.”