Reasons to Diss Kiev’s Top 10 City Mag
June 11, 2009
Photographs by Vijai
Model: Maria Zhakarova
Kiev’s biweekly Top 10 listings magazine is actually quite a cool zine: A well-designed, edgy contrast to the mainstream Time Out and Afisha. Unlike other local listings mags, Top 10 is more aspirational, choosing often to cover the Venice Biennale or Ibiza than events happening closer to home, despite the fact that a vast majority of Kievans have never ventured beyond Turkey and Egypt. But the magazine, like a transplanted New Yorker for an emerging Kievan elite, sets it sights high and thus separates itself from its competitors, which choose instead to shine shit and hype the local scene instead. So far so good. Somewhat edgy fashion shoots and trend mag design have endeared the publication to us during our stay in Kiev.
However, the praise only makes sense within a local context. Compare Top 10 to the doyens of the trendy listings scene in Europe – Portugal’s Diff or Athen’s Ozon – and it comes across as wanna-be, and desperately unironic. It’s ‘I Love Kiev’ campaign is so so 80s, and except for the heart on the T-shirt being slighty bloodied, it might as well be a children’s hospital in Oregon feeling good about itself. And when the magazine writes about the West, its coverage verges on adulation. Where’s the Beasty vibe, the ‘Eat the West’ attitude that demonstrates local pride.
So, just to show them we’re onto their game, we tore up a recent copy of Top 10. Ok, we admit, we were also bored, not much else going on now that it’s 33 degrees outside. What better thing to do than sip champange in a cool studio and have fun being bad.
Tags: City mags, Kiev, Maria Zhakarova, Top 10, Ukraine, Vijai
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