Find out where and how to have fun on Halloween in Kyiv, and don’t forget your costume
The tradition of Halloween, perhaps one of the weirdest annual celebrations there are, is even stranger than it may at first seem. Every year on “All Hallows Eve,” better known as “Halloween,” people dress up in costumes, trick-or-treat, watch scary movies, and have parties. This tradition originated in Ireland, as the Celtic Irish once thought that on October 31 the spirits of the dead could re-enter the bodies of the living. In turn, the living would dress up in ghoulish costumes to scare the spirits away. In the 1840s the Irish brought the tradition to America, where it has been celebrated ever since. Unlike Christmas or Easter, Halloween is not associated with a particular religion. Yet it weaves spirituality, death and religious beliefs into our present and historical imaginations. Halloween is hugely popular, infused with its own set of immediately recognizable symbols, rituals and stories. As one of the world’s oldest holidays, Halloween is still celebrated today in several countries around the globe, but it is in North America, Canada and Great Britain that it maintains its highest level of popularity. Every year, 65 percent of Americans decorate their homes and offices for Halloween … a percentage exceeded only by Christmas. In Ireland, the birthplace of Halloween, they still celebrate this holiday strongly – in more rural areas, bonfires are lit just as they were during the time of the Celts and of course children then trick-or-treat around their neighborhoods.
In China they celebrate a Halloween-style festival, which they call, Teng Chieh. Things such as food and water are placed in front of the pictures of deceased relatives. Lanterns are then lit to guide the spirits home on Halloween night. This ceremony has two purposes, the first being to remember the dead, and the second to help the dead ascend to heaven if they haven’t already done so.
Halloween celebration in Hong Kong is known as “Yue Lan” (Festival of the Hungry Ghosts) and is a time when spirits are believed to be roaming the world for 24 hours. Some people burn pictures of fruit or money at this time, believing these images will reach the spirit world and bring comfort to the ghosts. In Japan, they have a holiday celebration similar to Halloween, which is known as the Obon Festival. They celebrate the spirits of deceased relatives by preparing special foods and decorating it with beautiful red lanterns that are lit and set to float in the rivers.
Finally, in Spanish speaking countries such as Mexico, Latin America, and Spain, Halloween is known as “El Dia de los Muertos,” or “the Day of the Dead.” The holiday is three days of happiness, when families remember loved ones who have died. The festivities begin on October 31, when the spirits of the deceased are said to return to their homes. Many decorate their houses with alters of flowers and pictures to commemorate their loved ones.
In Ukraine, Halloween remains no more than one of the fashionable holidays adopted from the West. However, as Ukraine has no similar festival of its own, it grows in popularity every year, especially among young people, as a great occasion to dress in spooky costumes and go partying all night. Some would even walk the streets in strange attire and try to scare passersby, but if this doesn’t exactly appeal to you there are still a quite few ways to have fun on Halloween in Kyiv.
Spooky wear
As trick-or-treating is not common in Ukraine (children go asking for sweets at Christmas time instead) finding a good quality spooky costume will cost you a lot of effort and time. There are still no specialized Halloween costumes shops in Kyiv, but if you have some creative ideas about what you are looking for, there are shops that might be able to help you.
Holiday agency provides 900 holiday costumes and 100 special Halloween costumes as well as accessories, party supplies, and holiday decorations. Accessories include beards, swords, hats, jewelry, boots, tights, and many more. You can fulfill your desire to become a vampire, devil, an angel or Batman here. Rent of a costume per day at Holliday is about Hr 100 plus deposit (five times the price of a day’s rent). Accessories will be cheaper – Hr 30 per day.
Whether you’re looking for a costume for yourself or your kid, you will find a good one at Artist shop. Here you can find costumes (about Hr 80-100 per day and a Hr 500 deposit) and accessories (Hr 30) to enhance your look with costume wings, devil’s tails and horns, wigs, witchs’ hats, famous scary movie’s characters’ masks and more.
Art studio Skazheni Ravlyky (Crazy Snails) carries costumes for children and adults, including costume accessories, props, and theatrical make-up for the ultimate finishing touch. A dress designer will assist you in realizing your own ideas and visions of your character. Their make-up service costs Hr 100 and costume rental starts at Hr 50.
If you take Halloween preparations seriously, you can order a tailor-made costume at Budynok Klouna (Clown’s House.) The price for costume design is Hr 50, and costume tailoring will cost you about Hr 300. Also, they carry costume hats, shoes, wigs, masks, make-up, and Halloween accessories to make your fantasy costume come true. There is variety of scary costumes and funny costumes too. Their children’s costumes include famous characters, from superheroes to Sleeping Beauty and clowns.
At design studio Skazka (Fairytale) you’ll find beards, wigs, jewelry, wings, horns, shoes, weapons, helmets, capes, robes, hats, etc. In the make-up section you can shop for all sorts of makeup kits, face colors, blood, fangs, prosthetics and other stuff you might need for Halloween. They have products for magicians and clowns, where they can find dozens of prop items from lights, smoke machines, puppets, magic hats, swindle card decks and some other stuff to put on a great show for children and adults alike.
At Killena shop you can match bizarre shoes to your cute sexy nurse or vamp girl costume, from their latest collection “Ellie Shoes – Halloween.” There are a lot of pretty shoes and high boots with sculls and buckles, or funny elf toecaps. Also Killena sells a huge number of accessories, such as gothic style bags of different forms and types, with stars, hearts, spiders and nets. There are plenty of butterfly and angel wings as well. At Killena you can also buy special Halloween lingerie for quite affordable prices.
Holiday (4 Krakivska, office No.1, 581-6800)
Artist (8 Lvivska Ploshcha, 4th floor, 451-7725)
Skazheni Ravlyky (2A Observatorna, office No.35, 587-5232)
Budynok Klouna (2 Ploshcha Peremohy, 502-2171)
Skazka (4A Provulok Dzherelniy, 467-9133)
Killena (31A Vorovskoho, office No.38, 361-0616)
Halloween partying
So you got your costume. Now it’s time to make a list of Halloween parties to go to – after all, you get your outfit just for one night, so you need to make sure that as many people as possible see it and appraise it.
The festive program at Sam’s Steak House will begin at 8 p.m. with fire show and performances featuring exotic animals. The same evening the chef of the restaurant will offer devil dishes from a special menu. Golden Gate Pub has invited fakirs with their “pet” tarantulas and a “devilish” striptease for Halloween. Contrabanda band will provide music for the party. The pub recommends ordering a table in advance, as by the time the party begins at 9 p.m. Golden Gate is sure to be packed.
At the restaurant Tequila House an enchanting spectacle of cheerful nightmares will begin at 8 p.m. with the program “Magician.” Performances featuring boas and yogas are sure to impress you.
If you decided to party on Halloween at Docker Pub, you will be welcomed at the entrance by some odd characters and the band Magma will entertain guests with their new concert program. Queen Bee will hold a Halloween Party with the participation of such bands as Vanilin, playing synth pop, alt glam rockers Marilyn Monroe, Inversus, playing gothic metal and Audi Sile gothic industria act. The best gothic/industrial DJ’s will be playing at Queen Bee all night long. The party begins at 8 p.m.
Sky Hall will throw their “Carnival of Lost Souls IV Halloween Party” on Oct. 26 for all Ukrainian goths and heavy metal fans. The party, billed as “a grotesque Ukrainian celebration of Halloween,” will feature dark gothic/heavy music by Gray/Scale, Crazy Juliet, Cold in May plus a full line-up of deejays.
The regulars of River Palace can have some Halloween fun there for two days on Oct 30 and 31. The club has prepared its own Halloween program with a costume contest for a cash prize at midnight.
All the waiters and bartenders of Pyvna Bochka will serve special Halloween cocktails dressed as servants of the dark force. Live music and ghoulish decor will welcome you to Halloween at O’Brien’s Irish Pub. There’ll be lots of surprises and a best costume contest.
Kiev Golf Center will be holding a Halloween celebration for kids. The celebration will take place in the open air (on golf-platforms) and indoors, on the second floor of Golf Center fairy tale characters will welcome little guests by the entrance, and make-up artists will add finishing touches to wee faces. Clowns and magicians will be at hand throughout the party and the most original costumes will be marked by prizes.
Ghost Town
Scared silly about what you will do for Halloween? There are plenty of possibilities. Of course there are parties, however there is another way to have fun on Halloween in Kyiv – take a journey through its scariest spots.
There are four so-called “Lysa” (“Bald”) mountains in Kyiv, known as the hotbeds of evil’s force according to legends. The first and the most acknowledged one is located by metro Vydubychi, the second is situated on the hills of Honcharka – between Andriyivskiy Uzviz, Volodymyrska and Artema streets, the third is Zamkova mountain above Andriyivsky Uzviz, and the fourth is located above the Funicular station.
Richard’s Castle (15 Andriyvsky Uzviz), the most noticeable building on Andriyvsky Uzviz, initially was surrounded with frightful stories, mysteries and was reputed as a place where the dark forces lived, and all due to the spiteful builders. Because they were paid less than promised, they took revenge by putting hollow bottles in the flues of the castle, and as a result the house started making howling and moaning noises whenever the weather was windy. After reconstruction, the bottles had been removed, but naturally the “spooky” reputation remained.
The small yard of the so-called Well-House (4 Ally Tarasovoyi) that can be found just a few meters from the Hyatt Regency hotel is a great example of decadent and gothic architecture. Sunrays don’t penetrate the buildings there at all, and as a result there is constant mould on the asphalt, creating a very gloomy atmosphere. The fear reigning there is intensified by balconies which look like they may fall down on your head at any moment.
Who would imagine that it’s possible to find something scary just a few steps down from the well lit National Opera building? When you enter the passage at 48A Volodymyrska you will be encompassed by thunder and lightning, and frightful urban landscape with metallic trash tanks depicted in the graffiti on the walls of the passage. It’s easy to imagine the phantom of the opera wandering there on full moon nights.
The National Museum of Medicine of Ukraine (37 Khmelnytskoho) appears horrifying if you know its history. The quite inoffensive building, which was built by well-known architect Beretti, previously was the anatomic theater of the Kyiv University of Saint Volodymyr, where students-physicians cut up dead bodies. Writer Mikhail Bulgakov, who certainly knows about the creepy other world, used to go there often, and if you try to imagine what once happened there while visiting the museum yourself, it’ll surely chill your blood.
Sam’s Steak House (37 Zhylyanska, 287-2000)
Golden Gate Pub (15 Zolotovorotska, 235-5188)
Tequila House (8A Spaska, 417-0358)
Docker Pub (25 Bohatyrska, 451-8528)
Queen Bee (5 Malynovskoho, 451-6145)
Sky Hall (24/10 Malynovskoho, Dyvosvit entertainment center, 4th floor, 502-0088)
River Palace (Dnipro metro station, 490-6695)
Pyvna Bochka (3-B1 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho, 390-6106)
O’Brien’s Irish Pub (17A Mykhaylivska, 279-1584)
Kiev Golf Center (10D Prospect Heroiyv Stalinhradu, 230-9436)
