(Viktor Lapkin, born 1958, Kyiv)

Viktor Nedostup was a member of the Propala Hramota (The Lost Letter) poetic group, with Yurko Pozaiak and Semen Lybon as co-founders. They joined forces in 1988; Nedostup was the one to coin the name. In 1991, the group published a self-titled book. It was an absolute bestseller and soon couldn’t be bought anywhere; the second edition was only printed in 2019 by publishing house Liuta Sprava. Alluding to Gogol was intentional, as the group’s credo was all about humor, irony, sarcasm and play of words. As Oleksandr Irvanets would write in the foreword: ‘The three of them were so natural on the city’s streets, living and creating, drinking, dating girls, musing over the sense of life and writing down all their passions and feelings’.

Nedostup is a versatile and well-known character in Kyiv’s creative circles.

Viktor Nedostup also had an accomplished career in music. He founded and fronted a popular Kyiv-based band Banita Baida (1989-1993) that started Ukrainian folk psychedelic rock. Their debute album of 1990 was named …And a Couple of Birds. Later Neborak was a member of Vii, a legendary Ukrainian rock band, still active in the scene.

As a journalist, Nedostup was a long-time reporter for Radio Liberty Ukraine. He is also a boxer and photographer, and, lastly, a free philosopher, living according to Hryhorii Skovoroda’s famous words: ‘The world tried to capture me, but didn’t succeed’. Or, as Nedostup puts it:

There’s bread and salt for me, and coffee, and cocoa.

So to hell with you, o worldly glory.