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Reporter Brigid McCarthy provides a snapshot of the culture of corruption in Ukraine. She follows an American businessman as he tries to open his own café there, without paying any bribes. Download MP3

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LISA MULLINS: Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, is teeming with coffee shops. Most have cropped up in the last five or six years. But according to one American ex-pat, it’s still hard to get a decent cup of coffee in Kiev. Brigid McCarthy reports.

BRIGID MCCARTHY:  When Andreas Nemickas first moved to the Ukrainian capital nearly a decade ago, the Chicago native was not impressed by the coffee.

ANDREAS NEMICKAS:  Here there were a lot of sort of dive cafes that happened to serve a lot of instant coffee. So just liquid mud.

MCCARTHY: Nemickas is sipping a cappuccino in one of Kiev’s relatively new coffee chains. It’s not so different from the kind of cafe he had hoped to open. Eight years ago, he used all of his savings to buy a piece of property in a prime location downtown. Then he went about getting the necessary permits and approvals to renovate it. Nemickas, who’s fluent in Russian, came to Ukraine a decade ago as a small business consultant, so he was well aware of the challenges of starting a business here. But he wanted to try for himself. He had just one rule.

NEMICKAS: My strict stance was that I wasn’t going to pay a kopek.

MCCARTHY: For bribes.

NEMICKAS: Bribes, bribes and more bribes.

MCCARTHY: To the health inspectors, the fire inspectors, the police, the city architect, the tax police.

NEMICKAS: To anyone who has anything to do with overseeing your business, or providing you with a permit or approval. Any opportunity they have to put you under their thumb ‘til you agree to cough up some cash.

MCCARTHY: Eight years later, Andreas Nemickas hasn’t served a single espresso. But he has gotten a firsthand education in Ukrainian capitalism. He says one official demanded $30,000 just to sign a permit. But in most cases, Nemickas says, public officials are more discreet.

NEMICKAS:  They put up some airs about well, we don’t agree with this part of the project, we think this can be improved or that should be changed, and they make some sort of absurd demands.

MCCARTHY: For instance, they think your ventilation system, which is already larger than capacity, is too small.

NEMICKAS: Or they think that the toilet, where you’re planning to put it, they want you to move it to the complete other side of the property. And you try to explain well that physically that’s not possible, and they say well that’s what you need to do.

MCCARTHY: Then, they give you the name of an architect who can help you rework your design.

NEMICKAS: And that person ends up being their wife, their cousin, their brother.

PAUL NILAND: One of the worst curses that you could say to someone from the former Soviet Union is may you live on your salary alone.

MCCARTHY: Paul Niland is an Irish businessman who runs a successful publishing company in Kiev. He knows Andreas Nemickas, and his tale of woe.

NILAND: I think it’s very sad. Private entrepreneurs are being stifled by some bureaucrat that just wants to get a few thousand dollars for his own pocket.

MCCARTHY:  Niland says bribery is a holdover from Soviet times, when government salaries were barely enough to live on. Back then, bureaucrats supplemented their meager incomes by accepting gifts of sausage or homegrown cucumbers. Now, they want cash.

NILAND: No one simply has their salary. They’re all doing something to supplement, because quite simply, you have to.

MCCARTHY: Niland says, even so, there are ways to get things done without paying bribes.

NILAND: I’ve never paid a commercial bribe in the time that I’ve been here, and I’m not going to start.

MCCARTHY: But he does cultivate relationships. He says in this part of the world, people simply won’t work with you until they get to know you. And the way to make that happen is by bringing a bottle of cognac or vodka to a meeting, sending a box of chocolates to someone on their birthday, or handing over the keys to your dacha. Paul Niland doesn’t consider this bribery. He says it’s just part of the culture. His company publishes the in-flight magazine for Ukraine’s national airline. He says at first the local printer was hostile and unhelpful.

NILAND: And now actually she’s like “My darling Paul. How are you?”

MCCARTHY: Andreas Nemickas wasn’t willing to woo public officials or anyone else with cognac or chocolate. Eight years, stacks of letters and hundreds of meetings later, he still hasn’t gotten the necessary permits to open for business. So he’s given up. He’s not sorry he tried, but he has does have one regret.

NEMICKAS: What’s actually most painful is that what people here consider to be good coffee. Now all these coffee shops have opened up and people say hey great, no more instant for me. But they’re still not drinking good coffee, and I just know what it can be.

MCCARTHY:  And how to make it. Which Andreas Nemickas does, every morning. At home. For The World, I’m Brigid McCarthy.

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