Khyorst

Having an idle hour to pass, I looked in at the Pinchuk Art Centre in the heart of town. This institution, set up by one of Ukraine's richest oligarchs (he is in the steel business and is married to the daughter of the discredited ex-President Leonid Kuchma), specialises in bringing fashionable culture to the capital, and to this end currently hosts a large display of the work of the British art publicist Damien Hirst, his name mysteriously trancribed into Ukrainian as 'Khyorst' although there would be a perfectly good way of representing it as it sounds in English. Perhaps it was avoided because it might suggest the word khiret' (to grow sickly).

Of the items exhibited I will write nothing because, in the wise words of Wittgenstein, 'About that which cannot be spoken of, one must remain silent'. My interest was more in the centre itself and the people visiting it. I note that the hype begins on the pavement outside; although there is plenty of space within,the doorkeepers are carful only to let in a few people at a time so as to keep a small queue in the street. In this queue I noted that I was at least twice as old as other visitors and this remained the case thoughout my visit. Entry is free by the way.

The items on display, set out over four levels (and continuing in a temporary display in the courtyeard of an adjacent shopping mall), attracted no detailed attention from the viewers - almost entirely male/female couples with a few pairs of female friends - who strolled through to complete the course and then left. Only a few studied the information on the computers in the gallery's reception, including heavyweight essays by English and German pundits and an interview with Hirst by Will Self. This includes Hirst's finely-wrought perception on Tony Blair: 'The lying c---. I hated all that spin. I just looked at him and thought, you're a fraud'. Takes one to know one, perhaps.

I was irresistably reminded of the Russian interpreter I used on my first visits to Moscow in 1992/93. A Gucci concession had just opened in the old GUM store alongside Red Square and Katya couldn't wait to see it. 'Look at these T-shirts' she squealed - perfectly anodyne items, but retailing at $100. Using my distant experience as a clothing manufacturer, I turned one inside out - the ragged hem was not even properly finished, and there were loose threads everywhere. 'Katya, this is utter rubbish. If you want a good T-shirt, I will buy you one at Marks and Spencer in England'.'Oh no, that won't do, this is Gucci!!'. The name and the fame was - and still is, it appears - the thing for wannabes in the new democracies.

But maybe I am being unfair. Not far away from the Pinchuk Centre, near the corner of Prorizna and the Khreschchatyk, is a statue to a well-known character in Russian fiction, the con-artist Panikovsky from Ilf and Petrov's 'The Golden Calf'. In the book Panikovsky stands on just this street corner posing as a blind man (as in the statue) and asking people to help him cross the road. Whilst they are assisting him he picks their pockets. Perhaps it is the native admiration for sheer chutzpah that makes the Kyivlans indulgent to Mr. Khyorst.