Ukraine's Spherical Cow

Oh, that place is so crowded. No one goes there any more.

Феникс (Phoenix), formerly called Еврика (Eureka) and Казбек (Kazbek), is a new fusion restaurant on Lesi Ukrainki Boulevard in Kyiv. On Thursday nights before the Orange Revolution, they used to have Georgian music and I would show up. It was a pretty cramped place, and it began to occur to me, “Should I go this Thursday or not?” I realized that a lot of other people, especially the regulars - mostly corrupt politicians, judges and money managers - would be asking themselves the same question.

The problem is not new. In 1994, Irish economist William Brian Arthur defined it as the El Farol Bar Problem, a resource allocation puzzle involving non-cooperating agents where, if everyone uses the same pure strategy, it is guaranteed to fail, no matter what it is. Political upheaval - like a war — just adds another layer of complexity.

The more things change they stay the same. Today a geisha meets you at the entrance to the bar, where little glass shrimp hang down from the ceiling. This i…