"The poet Rymaruk said that he drank his Shevchenko Prize here." An interview with the owner of the tavern "Cupid"

The legendary Kyiv pub Cupid is a place where iconic Ukrainian writers and poets have been gathering for many years. It hosted some of the first concerts of the band "Zhadan i Sobaki", performed by "Mertvy Piven", and the founder of Gogol Bordello Yevhen Gudz organized apartment parties at the Kupidon.

Back in 2019, it was a crowded place: hundreds of people came to concerts on weekends. However, in 2025, the Cupid was not crowded, and in September it turned out that the legendary venue was closed.

It's just a renovation, reassures the pub's owner, Fedir Balandin. According to him, the interior is being restored, and the legendary establishment itself is slightly updating its concept. In addition to beer, they will start making cocktails. And a completely new bar project will appear in one of the halls .

Fedir Balandn does not want to talk about Cupid's earnings. YouControl indicates that he is a member or beneficiary of five legal entities. There is no data on their revenue in analytical systems.

A correspondent of LIGA.net talked to the owner of the pub about the reasons for the decrease in visitors to the Cupid, what will happen after the renovation, and how the legendary establishment influenced the Femen movement, Ukrainian literature and music.