"F*ck you, police!" V1lat shares story of TaZ detained by Ukrainian police in 2011
2022-06-28 08:36:00Ukrainian caster Vitalii "v1lat" Volochai shared an anecdote about veteran CS player Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas. The Pole was once detained by Kyiv police, after he drank too much at a LAN afterparty in 2011. V1lat with NAVI founder ZeroGravity got him out. Vitalii told this story during a podcast by Olsior.
We had a StarLadder season in Kyiv. The event had an afterparty where we had a great time. But it wasn't enough for the guys. The players like to party. So, everyone went to a downtown bar. I arrived five minutes later and saw a known Polish player sitting on a curb near the bar. He probably felt sick: ate something wrong or had a "food" poisoning, you know. I don't know, maybe his stomach wasn't used to Kyiv food.
The player is sitting there, he is sick, I come closer and ask: "Is everything fine, Vitya?" He says: "I'm fine, but could you bring me some water?" I answer: "Alright, I'll be right back."
I'm coming back with some water, but there's no Vitya. I ask the bar bouncers: "My colleague was sitting here, he can't speak Ukrainian at all." They say: "Yeah, it's ok. He was sitting here, and policemen came to ask how he felt. He puked on a policeman's shoes. They took him somewhere."
I didn't know what to do. I was a kid without any connections. I pull out my phone and call ZeroGravity. I say: "Sasha, we have a problem, TaZ has been detained." We jump in a taxi and start our night raid over police stations.
In the fourth one, we find a policeman who says: "Yeah, we detained a Pole. He told us to f*ck off when we asked how he felt. We told him to not be like this. On which he stated 'F*ck you, police!' When we pulled him up he got us a little dirty. What do you want?" We answer: "To take him with us." They say: "No we won't let you".
The situation was resolved by ZeroGravity. He bluffed about having big political connections, using a photo of Ukraine's Prime Minister, who met NAVI not long before that, to congratulate them for their historical several major wins.
ZeroGravity turned on a god mode. This incident was a month after NAVI had a meeting with Ukraine's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. They were given some medals. Sasha and I went outside and thought about what to do. This is an international scandal, we must save the guy.
Then Sanya takes out the phone and shows the photo of the event to the policeman. He enlarges it and says: "Here I am, but you know who this is? Maybe I should dial him? Cause I'm about to, right now. You're creating an international scandal. Do you know where you will work after that?" I'm like, "Damn, this will not work."
The policeman looked at the photo, showed it to his colleague, and said: "Sorry." When we were taking Wictor out of the department, he was throwing all the swear words in Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and English he could remember. He threatened the police that he would go to the Polish embassy and the Polish special forces would come. In the end, they let him go and wished us a safe travel.
It's unclear when this story took place. V1lat says this happened at StarLadder event, "a month after" NAVI met the PM. But the meeting happened in July 2010, and it seems that there was no significant StarLadder events in Kiev in 2010. The CS 1.6 IEM Season V European Championship Finals fits the description the most, it was held in Kiev in January 2011. Back then, TaZ was playing for Frag eXecutors. Both NAVI and the Poles went out of the tournament in the semis.
