Kyiv's first Internet cafe opens its doors to enthusiastic customers and skeptical government inspectors.
ookups appearing in their homes and offices. Now they can surf the Web like the rest of the world does – while sipping cappucino and relaxing in a cafe.
Last week's opening of Kyber Kafe – the capital's first Internet coffee shop and lounge – met with moderate success in a city where leisure time and spending money are at a minimum for much of the population. Though business is not yet booming, the owners said the first week's turnover was larger than they expected.
“Our business plan anticipates five percent [usage] of computers in September, but yesterday [Thursday, Sept. 4] it was 50 percent,” said Oleksandr Chernytskiy, one of the cafe's four owners.
A week after Kyber Kafe's Sept. 4 opening, owners said the cafe was operating at around 30 percent of capacity and increasing steadily. “We noticed that the number of returning clients is growing, and moreover, people bring their friends with them,” Chernytsky said. Kyber Kafe's two rooms boast 14 computers for Internet browsing, and a third room is currently being transformed into a presentation hall.
One hour of Internet access at Kyber Kafe costs Hr 12 ($6.50). The price also includes a cup of coffee and a chocolate. Its interior more closely resembles a modern office than a cozy cafe, but owners said the design was deliberately kept “neutral” to satisfy a variety of tastes. Chernytsky said by Tuesday Sept. 9 the cafe already had some regular clients. “One guy comes every day and spends six hours a day in the cafe,” he said. “But he is not a serious Internet user, he mostly plays games.” Myroslav Vantukh, the guy himself, had no trouble finding the place – he lives across the street. Although he has Internet access on his computer at home, he still comes to the Kyber Kafe regularly. “It's better than staying at home … They have interesting games, the service is good, and the owners are nice young guys, they are always helpful,” he said.
Another client, Yuriy Varlamov, who had visited Kyber cafe four times by Tuesday, said he liked the place because “there are good games, one can sit and drink there in good atmosphere, and there is no disagreeable clientele.” Varlamov said he has access to Internet at work, but the office closes early, and his boss gets angry when people play games at work.
“Anyway, this cafe is not just an opportunity to play games, but to spend time in a pleasant atmosphere,” he added.
Volodymyr Kedrenovsky, another owner, said clients also like the place because of the quality of the equipment and the high-speed Internet connections. “You do not normally get access to such speed and quality in the city, unless you work for some bank,” he said.
As a new business, Kyber Kafe has attracted not just paying customers but a host of government inspectors eager to see if the enterprise is being run as government regulations demand, and to extract hefty fines if it is not. “Our first visitor was from the tax authorities,” said Kedrenovsky. “If something had been wrong with our tax [declaration], we would have gotten in trouble on the very first day.” He said tax inspectors had been frequent visitors to the cafe. “It's as if they're trying to bury us as soon as we're born,” said Chernytsky.
The official inspections started before the cafe even opened for business. As the construction work was going on, the site was visited by fire inspectors, sanitary and epidemic inspectors, officials from the state-run power companies, telephone officials, and two city welfare agencies, according to Chernytskiy.
“An inspector from the [state agency which regulates advertising for cafes and shops] fined us Hr 109 because we didn't have a special license to mount our sign,” he said. “And they told us that by mounting a sign we [had] obstructed passenger and traffic movement in the street, even though the work was done at night and by only one person.”
However, Chernytsky said the cafe had got off lightly – the shop sign monitoring authority can fine businesses a maximum of Hr 1090 for this particular offense. Organized crime has not presented a problem, according to Kyber Kafe's owners.
“We're not getting trouble from the mafia, only from the state,” said Kedrenovsky, who went on to complain that outdated state regulations make it very hard for businesses like his to operate. One such regulation, dating back to 1934, prevents the cafe from serving food, because the premises do not have three separate areas for cutting bread, meat and fish, and three different sinks with chlorinated water, cold water and hot water.
