Day Two After Hours at Squat 17B

Jazz, cocktails, and conversation with Ukrainian composer Dmytro Celt Danov

A squat is the occupation of an unused or abandoned building without paying rent or holding a formal lease. In Ukraine, many activist, artistic, or countercultural groups squatted after the 1990s economic troubles. In the local creative scene, squat can also be a brand identity, signaling an unconventional, artistic, or rebellious space.

Dmytro Celt Danov invites me to an evening at Squat 17B. My appointments on this trip and all my literary adventures are the result of three degrees of separation. "Six degrees of separation" is the theory that any two people can be connected through a chain of intermediaries. There’s a parlor game that suggests any Hollywood actor is within six degrees of separation of Kevin Bacon. In my experience, when you approach someone with an earnest request for a meeting, through an introduction from an introduction, you can get to almost anyone.

A jazz trio plays Summertime as a local woman dances tap and kids bounce on parental laps amidst clusters of friends enjoying a perfect Kyiv evening.

I drop a donation at the entrance where I am told to swipe a folding chair and join the crowd. The bar is inside. It’s a marvelous scene. Feels like summer in New York, an eclectic energetic mix, another example of Ukrainians presenting normalcy as a political act.

Dmytro arrives, stylishly dressed and immediately warm and collegial. Either Ukrainians are intensely friendly or the purpose of my encounters engenders some immediate solidarity. He walks me inside and buys me a drink. Bartender asks what I want. I tell him to surprise me with a local favorite. He pours tequila, shaken not stirred.

Lviv and Kyiv are progressive and vibrant creative communities. I could live in either one. This place rocks.

We go upstairs to a cozy table overlooking the downstairs space. Dmytro has a fantastically diverse set of professional credentials from project management to composing to FPV test piloting. The outside wall bears a wound from a rocket attack. I ask about the history of the place and the neighborhood. We discuss the emotional experience of living in a place you love with 150,00 troops assaulting the border. A “great sense of unity and sense of purpose,” mutual help and support from complete strangers, IT engineers on electric scooters helping out babushkas.

A path forward? “Hard to say what will happen next. Nobody knows.” Why resist? “Because otherwise we are long gone. I want people to see, when the dark times came for my country, I was here doing all I could.”

How does creating and performing change in a time of resistance and war? “It is extremely hard for me to carry on. Every bloody day someone is being killed, every day some neighborhood is being destroyed.”

His partner Tosh joins us. She is a TCCC (Tactical Combat Casualty Care) instructor and Military Paramedic. We discuss her work, romance under the threat of drones, and her reasons for resistance. Full transcripts will be provided in the forthcoming book.

Dmytro promises me a tour by Darya Kryzh, co-founder of Squat17b Yard Cafe and Art Space. She joins us as night descends in earnest and we wander downstairs. I am astonished to learn that she has come to my Thai island home Koh Phangan every year for 10 years and hangs out a few hundred meters from my house.

After 12 hours of walking the city and gathering stories, Dmytro and Tosh drive me home.

NOTE: I only activate email for select Substack posts so as not to deluge subscribers during my journey. You can find them all here and you can choose your own frequency in Settings. After the trip, I will reduce Substack emails to an average of once per week. I will soon post all photos and videos on Instagram.