KYIV — UNIT.City has rebuilt the entire innovation park as a working replica of the year 2003, complete with a functioning fax line for foreign payments, a barrel-kvas distribution network and a Dendy console in every conference room, after organizers decided that a normal business season launch would be too predictable.
The park's management confirmed that all resident companies must now conduct at least one negotiation per week by fax, and that the fax machine has been placed in the lobby under a glass dome, where it is fed paper by a dedicated operator in a Nokia 3310 T-shirt. «We are not returning to the past,» said one organizer. «We are simply giving the past a permanent office here.»
The Business Season Launch itself ran as a talk show in the style of 2000s television, with speakers from OMD Optimum Media Ukraine, Melt Water Inc. and UKRSIBBANK BNP Paribas Group debating how companies were founded two decades ago. Between panels, guests played Pac-Man, Contra and Tanks, and a team quiz required participants to identify Ukrainian hits of the era. The evening ended with a symbolic call from 2046, in which a future company advised its founder to keep the fax machine.
By the following morning, the park had installed a second kvas barrel at the main entrance and extended the gaming club's hours indefinitely. A spokesperson said the nostalgia zone would remain open until the last resident learns to send a payment by fax without asking for help.