B EAST Magazine website

Kiev, December 14

Kiev’s bikini-wearing, anti-sex trade feminists struck again today, when they played a mock football game in skimpy clothes in frigid weather (was -10 degrees last time I stepped outside) to protest prostitution during the Euro 2012 championships, which Ukraine is set to co-host alongside Poland. Dressed like a football hooligan’s verseion of East European soccer sluts, the girls held up provocative banners that variously read ‘Ukraine is not Europe’s Bordello’, ‘Only Sport not Sexual Games’, and ‘We are not Products’. Quite predictably, their stunt got wide publicity across Europe, especially in Italy where they have a cult following.

It’s no the first time that Femen has struck in recent weeks. They protested Miss Ukraine last week by splashing fake blood on their gowns, and made headlines in October by inviting Gigolo Record’s iconic DJ Hell to spin in a rave outside the parliament to protest prostitution. Femen are certainly a breath of fresh air in a passive nation where politicians still mostly dictate the public dialogue. And, prostitution & sex tourism are certainly hot-button topics in this struggling country, where over a million girls are involved in the sex trade.

Their ultra-sexy vibes though are what makes them a Beast favorite. While Western feminists would never dream of tarting themselves up to protest a strip bar, Femen would arrive on the scene and humiliate the strippers, by dressing spicier than then. And, believe me, some of those Femen babes are a tasty dish indeed! Their rationale for doing so according to leader Anna Gutsol is that they don’t want to deny feminity itself, and a women’s right to looking good. They’re against prostitution, but not dressing up and looking beautiful. Even Femen understand that if they spoke out against dolling onself up-which is the favorite pastime of most Ukrainian women—they’d lose 90% of their potential fan base.

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.

BEast Magazine, Eastern Europe’s edgy fashion/lifestyle glossy, is organising two one-week travel/fashion photography workshops on Ukraine’s Crimean Coast in the summer of 2009. The workshops will be led by the photographers that have given the magazine its distinctive look and provocative feel over the years. Unlike some photography workshops, which place too much emphasis on the technical aspects of photograhy, BEast Magazine’s workshops will be more about recreating the creative insanity of a magazine photoshoot. There will also be an option of landscape and travel photography for those interested in capturing the harsh beauty of the rocky Crimean coasts and its mix of influences, ranging from Turkish, Mongol & Czarist to the Soviet era.

For more information, click here BEast Photo Workshops