This is a real saloon in Odessa, Ukraine, complete with the horse in the hat, the swing doors, and the English word "Saloon" over the basement entrance. The sign over the horse is "COWBOY" in Cyrillic, which is the official name of the place.

Details provided in Odessa Travel Guide only contribute to the overall surrealism:

«COWBOY» Saloon
Bar. European cuisine. Dinner 50 grn.*
Address: Grecheskaya str, 32
Tel: 714-40-77

A question every concerned American should ask at seeing this is, of course, "Why do they hate us?"
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* grn. = grivna (in Russian) or hryvnia (in Ukrainian) = $0.20
That makes your dinner cost $10 US Dollars

I don't remember what TV program I was watching or what former soviet satellite country it was about, but there is a segment of the population that are American cowboy crazy. They sell cowboy hats, have country music bars, and etc... Although their perception of the cowboy was slightly skewed (similar to the above picture). The local tour guide said. They really have no idea what a cowboy does, if you where to ask them they would say. Cowboys chase cows and then milk them. LMAO.

But what the hell if you are gone to admire an icon, what better than the American cowboy.

I think someone in America should open a Cossack bar.

There's this nice little spot in the UK, offering warm and comradely fellowship:


AND live entertainment!

Only these are not Ukrainian Cossacks, but perhaps the Don Cossacks from Russia.

It's about the same difference as between the Texas Cowboys and the Minnesota National Guard.

These are the real Ukrainian Cossack performers.


Now where are your Amerikan Kowboy performers I ask you? Ptui!

Red Square wrote:Now where are your Amerikan Kowboy performers I ask you? Ptui!

Oh yes, I forgot about Komrade Kovboy. But he works for us. While distracting the decadent bourgeois tourists with his smooth skin, he doesn't forget his real mission, to photograph the capitalist vices on Times Square with a camera hidden in his briefs, and to transmit the visuals to Laika the Space Dog using his tinfoil antenna underneath the cowboy hat.

Eewww....

That reminds me of some dumb show that lasted about 5 episodes before it got canceled about some dumb guy and a naked trucker with a guitar covering the "reproductive organs". It looked really stupid, and I never did find out how.

C&W music has fans here in Japan and, so I've been told, in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Is this part of the whole Dallas phenomenon that some people claim helped undermine Communism? Not "Who shot JR?" or "Who shot the Czar?" but "Who shot ITAR?"

One of the weirdest things I ever did was attend a "Country and Western Night" at a hotel bar in Taunton in the UK.

Interesting. Was it a sincere attempt at C&W, an cynical one, or just plain weird?

In Hokkaido, which has open areas and has been influenced in its agricultural and municipal development by Britons and North Americans, the whole Western and cowboy thing sometimes gets worked into farms, amusement parks, bars, and eateries.

One of my favorite subcultures in Japan are the middle-aged and older guys who buy white Harleys then deck them out like CHiPs cruisers, with gold star insignia on the tanks, bullhorns, and flashing blue lights (flashing red is reserved for police, fire, ambulance). Often they even go for the uniforms and helmets. They can be unsettling if they race up behind you, lights flashing.

"Kavboy?" ?!?