A U.S. Staple Gallops Into Ukraine: The Cowboy Bar

KIEV, Ukraine - They look like they just stepped out of a Louis Lamour novel, three hombres in black hats, black suits and black boots, heading up Kiev's main street.

These buckaroos mean business - American-style business in the Wild East of Ukraine.

Trey Aven, 47, is an Oklahoma City advertising exec-turned Peace Corps volunteer-turned entrepreneur.

John Montgomery, 52, is a Texan (with an odd California twang) who recently sold his share of a successful nightclub in Oxnard, Calif., and headed east.

The third partner, Igor Gunia, 19, is a greenhorn from Kiev, but learning fast.

"What's the one thing about America that appeals to everyone?" asks Aven, striking his best Marlboro man pose.

Cowboys, of course.

So Aven, who first came to Ukraine on a Peace Corps project in 1992, planted the seed with David Zeigler, a California real-estate developer looking for business opportunities in Kiev. The seed grew, and finally blossomed into one of the most improbable business ventures this side of the Dneiper: a cowboy bar in the heart of the Ukrainian capital.

It's called, plain and simple, The Cowboy Bar, and it looks like the genuine article.

The grand opening was last month. The mechanical bull failed to clear customs in time, but that hardly mattered when actor Jack Palance, the original Ukrainian cowboy, showed up instead. He was in town for a Chernobyl benefit.

But the real star of this cowboy bar is a 19-year-old singer and guitar picker named Tony Smith.

A few months ago, Smith was in Levelland, Texas, wondering what might be out there beyond South Plains Junior College, where he was enrolled in the school's commercial-music program.

The answer came in the form of an Internet job posting that found its way onto the department's bulletin board. Some Kiev cowboys were looking for a musician who could put together a country-western band.

"I'm your man," Smith replied, and was offered the job on the spot.

Kiev is overloaded with talented musicians, none of whom had ever heard a note of Merle Haggard or Garth Brooks until Smith showed up with a suitcase full of tapes.

He quickly found his drummer, guitarist, bass player and keyboard man - all of them conservatory-trained musicians playing with local rock bands.

Finding a fiddler was harder. "I auditioned about 15 fiddle players before I found the one I liked," Smith said. His name is Dimi and in real life he is a violinist with one of Kiev's major orchestras.

Smith doesn't speak Russian. The band members don't speak English. Their common language is music, and after four months of playing together, they sound like they tumbled out of a Nashville recording studio.

It's too early to tell if Kiev's Cowboy Bar will be a commercial success, but Aven is counting on it.

"I reckon this is the last place on the Earth where I can truly be a cowboy," he says. "I sure can't go back to Oklahoma and do it. Folks there all want to be New Yorkers."