W e h a ve o n l y fre s h a n d s a vo r y n e w s!
May 2016 | № 5 (152)
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Welcome May with a Cookout!
Victory Day:
Liudmila Pavlichenko: A Female Face of War
The Globe in Your Pocket: Travel Secrets from Liudmyla Kalabukha
Rituals and Traditions: Wi-Fi in all restaurants
“But Tobacco and a Pipe for a Cossack on the Road Will Be Fine…”
24/7 food delivery and hotline:
8 (495) 780-77-44 www.tarasbulba.ru
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2 | culinary
Welcome May with a Cookout! Perhaps every Russian citizen and every person from the former Soviet republics associates May with outings and picnics. Such outings are also known as mayovkas. The word has an interesting origin. Prior to 1917, workers who protested against exploitation organized secret meetings at the beginning of May (usually in the countryside) called mayovkas. Then, this name started to be applied to any spring trip, without any revolutionary implications. Additional days off during the May holidays are a good excuse to escape town for a picnic. But what is outdoor cooking without a shashlik (shish kebab)? Preparing shashlik out in nature during May has become a whole ritual for our fellow citizens. Every detail is important in this process: the choice of meat and marinade as well as the fine art of maintaining a fire in the brazier. Experienced cooks advise to choose fat-layered meat so that it can fry thoroughly and not be dry inside. The pork neck is ideal for this purpose. It is said that this meat is very hard to spoil because it is quite juicy, tender, and soft; it quickly absorbs the marinade and does not dry out on the fire. Many gourmets think only mutton can make an authentic shashlik. This is logical, since it was originally prepared from mutton. However, it has a specific taste and smell, and it needs to be presoaked. You also need to choose seasonings depending on whether you want to disguise or enhance the special flavor of the meat. But for true fans of mutton it is not a problem. Veal, poultry, or fish can also make an excellent shashlik. The main thing is to make an appropriate marinade so that dish will be delicious, soft, juicy, and fragrant.
What is a marinade after all? It is a mixture of spices and seasonings, juice or other acidic products. Sometimes vegetable oil is added. When meat sits in such a mixture it becomes soft and takes on the flavor of the ingredients. For beef, mutton, and pork, marinades should be rich. For poultry and fish they should be more tender and delicate. Soft meat needs less time to be marinated and tough meat needs more time. On average, meat should be marinated for 2-3 hours, while for fish and poultry 40-50 minutes are enough. The containers should be made of plastic or enamel, and never aluminum. A tight plastic bag can also do. The container with shashlik ingredients should be kept in a refrigerator or another cold place.
It is recommended to cut the meat across the fibers for it not to lose its shape during cooking and not to shrivel. If the pieces are very large, they need to be marinated for a much longer time. It is important not to be too generous with acidic ingredients, otherwise the shashlik can turn out dry. For the same reason, do not add salt. Traditional marinade with vinegar is gradually becoming a thing of the past. Nowadays new recipes with other acidic ingredients that soften the meat, retain its natural taste, and add novelty flavor are popular. Creative cooks experiment with marinades in different ways, adding to them unexpected and even exotic components, which make the taste of these mixtures sweet and sour or spicy. Soy sauce, red or white wine, brandy, coffee, mustard, sparkling mineral water, natural yogurt, pomegranate juice, onion, garlic and, of course, different spices – all of these will help you make a special and extremely tasty marinade. A sense of proportion and taste should be central here since the combination even of the best products will not necessarily be successful.
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If you have enough time and do not want to experiment, you can prepare the marinade on the basis of milk or yogurt with a bit of onion (one onion should be grated, and another one sliced), pepper and spices to taste. Salt is not obligatory, otherwise the meat will not be juicy. Meat should be soaked in this marinade for 3-4 hours if it is pork, and 5 hours if it is beef. But sometimes the idea of a cookout comes spontaneously and you have little time on your hands to organize everything. For such cases, we have a wonderful recipe for an exotic marinade with kiwi.
You will need: • Pork neck - 1 kg • Kiwi - 1 piece • Lemon - 1/2 • Thyme, rosemary, or other herbs (preferably fresh) • Ground and unground pepper (better to take a mixture of peppers) Slice the meat across the fibers into pieces of about 3x4 cm. Add pepper and herbs and mix it. Grate the kiwi with a grater or in a blender and add to the meat. Cut the lemon into two parts. Squeeze one part into the marinade, and put the other whole part into the marinade as well (the entire ¼ lemon can then be put on the hot coals, which will give the dish a pleasant flavor). Mix everything together. Forty minutes later the meat is ready to be cooked. It should not stay in such a marinade for more than 2 hours, so you should act quickly.
However, if you cannot go on a picnic out of town, it is not a valid reason not to enjoy a shashlik. You can treat yourself to a lovely shashlik in the very heart of Moscow – in Korchma Taras Bulba. It is cooked using fresh chilled meat from our own farm. Korchma has a barbecue menu for every taste: pork, veal, chicken, or mutton on bone. It is served with a fragrant sauce adjika or satsebeli. If you want some-
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thing unusual and exquisite, you can try our shashlik made of pike perch in bacon with tomato. To enjoy your spring cookout (it does not matter if it’s in the country or in the city), you do not need a special occasion, only good company and a positive mood. Text: Olga SINYUGINA
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4 | Folk Traditions
Easter Egg:
What Can a Ukrainian Pysanka Tell Us? This unique folk tradition goes back thousands of years; it includes a lot of superstitions, beliefs, and rituals. It is hard to say exactly why people began to paint birds’ eggs, but even today painting Easter eggs is still one of the most authentic traditions for many peoples. As soon as Lent starts, women, children, and even some men heat wax, mix paints, say a prayer, and begin to «write» pysankas, or Easter eggs. Artists Solomiya Senchyk and Olha Pentsko told us about Easter egg symbols, the most interesting rituals associated with marking the eggs, and the history of this art. Traditions of Egg Painting Ukrainians have painted pysankas in preparation for Easter since olden times. More precisely, the process was called “writing” not painting. Perhaps, this was due to the fact that the egg was decorated with special symbols that had the power to protect people. Naturally, it was more than just a symbol of life, but also a powerful amulet. This tradition appeared long ago. It existed in the times of Trypillian culture, as archaeologists often found clay or ceramic Easter eggs covered with images. A pysanka was made from a full egg, but if it was first emptied, then it was necessary to put grain inside of it so that life could symbolically settle there. Ukrainians believed that an empty egg could serve as a haven for evil.
It was said that pysankas had great magical power. They were never written in collaboration with more than one person so that an evil eye couldn’t deprive the eggs of their magic. That’s why egg painting was a solitary exercise performed mainly late at night so that no stranger would interrupt the process. Folk Traditions Girls gave Easter eggs to the boys whom they wanted to marry later. People decorated their houses with them and hung them near icons, where they remained until the next holiday. In the Hutsul region, pigeons were made of Easter eggs by attaching a paper tail and wings to an egg. It was a reminder that «when Jesus was born, a dove flew and hovered over him.» Pysankas were considered a source of fertility and prosperity; that’s why
when people built a house, Easter eggs were laid into the foundation to ensure a happy life. On Easter, the elderly went to the cemetery and greeted their deceased relatives with the words «Christ is Risen» and broke a pysanka against the cross. The egg was then crushed to pieces and sprinkled over the grave in the belief that the deceased soul in the form of birds will fly over and eat it. Rituals Before writing a pysanka, a person had to make a sign of the cross, recite Our Father, and put on clean clothes. He had to have good intentions and harbor no malice in his heart. Many people used to go to confession before sitting down to work. Impure thoughts, anger, strife – all of these
could affect a pysanka and spoil it. And for good reason, because all the good was invested into an Easter egg, while negative thoughts at the time of painting could bring misfortune to the person for whom the pysanka was meant. The Meaning of Ornaments The cult of the sun was perhaps the most important in the life of our ancestors. They lived in difficult conditions looking forward to the end of the cold winter and the next harvest. Therefore, a symbolic image of the sun was often painted on eggs: a circle, an eight-pointed star, or crossed lines with curled ends. Often eggs were decorated with crosses. They symbolized the four corners of the earth, the four winds, and the four seasons.
Folk Traditions | 5
A spiral symbolized fertility and the passage of time, and a star symbolized the sun and dawn. Often images were not geometric. People depicted animals and plants. A rooster was a harbinger of the day, a symbol of light that conquers darkness. A fish symbolized water. It was a symbol of life and health. Egg-Painting Techniques It is interesting to know that once pysankas were painted on the eggs of chickens, cranes, geese, ducks, and even wild pigeons. Later, artists resorted only to chicken eggs. They had to be degreased with vinegar, and only then covered with pure bee wax. Sometimes the wax was mixed with carbon black so that it would not be transparent
and would leave a distinct trace. The wax was melted in a crock on embers. All the paints were natural. They were dissolved in rainwater or stream water because such water was believed to be soft with no iron or salts. If the water was taken from a well, the paint would not stick well to an egg. In some regions, a sprinkle of holy water would be added to the paints. Pysankas were painted in layers: light colors first, then slowly transitioning to darker shades. Images and designs were drawn with a pysachok. This is a special instrument: a copper or a brass tube attached to a wooden handle. The tube was dipped into melted wax and then used to draw designs on the egg. This technique is still being used today. Interview by Stepan Hrytsiuk Photo by Yuriy Helytovych
Curious Facts The oldest pysanka painted on an eggshell was found by archaeologists in the city of Lviv at a depth of 5.5 meters in a water collector. Most likely, it was painted on a goose egg, and dates back about 500 years. It has been preserved almost 90 percent intact. The world’s only pysanka museum is located in Kolomyia, IvanoFrankivsk region. There are over six thousand eggs on display there, both from Ukraine and other countries of the world. In 2010, the Ukrainian artist Oksana Mas unveiled a unique mural panel in St. Sophia’s Cathedral located in the capital of Ukraine. It depicted the Holy Mother of God, and was made of 15,000 hand-painted Easter eggs. It weighed 2.5 tons and occupied 7 square meters. The artist spent over a year working on this amazing mosaic.
6 | History
May 1 Easter. The Resurrection of Christ.
May 2 Feast of the Blessed Matron of Moscow
May 3 Confectioner’s Day
May 6 Feast of St. George the Dragon Slayer
May 8 Day of St. Mark the Evangelist Mother’s Day in Ukraine
9 may
Liudmyla Pavlichenko: A Female Face of War She was called by different names: the Fire Queen, Lady Death, and even the Bolshevik Valkyrie. In 1941, at the beginning of World War II in the Soviet Union, she volunteered to go to the front and in just one year she killed more than three hundred enemy soldiers. It was confirmed by the reconnaissance. As a result, she became the most prolific female sniper in human history and a living legend. Her life was like an adventure novel. Liudmyla Pavlichenko, a sniper of Ukrainian origin, became the hero of an epic film Battle for Sevastopol that was released last year. On the eve of Victory Day, we dedicate these pages to her life story.
Victory Day May 9 Victory Day Thanksgiving Prayer on Victory Day
May 15 Day of Sts. Princes Boris and Gleb International Family Day
May 17 Birthday of the Korchma on Leningradskiy Blvd.
May 18 Day of the Inexhaustible Chalice Icon
May 20 Apparition of the Cross in the Sky over Jerusalem
May 22 Summer Feast of St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker
Liudmyla Pavlichenko was born on July 12, 1916, in the small town of Bila Tserkva, just outside Kyiv. After graduating high school, she enrolled in the Faculty of History of Taras Shevchenko State University of Kyiv and took up the sport of shooting. Girls’ nights and a careless student life suddenly came to a halt both for her and for many others with a sudden announcement made by a famous Soviet radio presenter Levitan, broadcast all over the country: «Today at 4 o’clock in the morning, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, attacked the borders of the Soviet Union.» At that time Liudmyla was in Odesa, where he was doing research for her thesis about Bohdan Khmelnytsky: a hero she passionately admired from an early age. When her friends asked her, «What shall we do next?» she answered without a shadow of a doubt: «I’m going to the front as a volunteer.» And she went to the nearest recruiting office. When examined by the recruitment board she showed outstandingly accurate results in shooting. So the Board decided to assign Pavlichenko as a sniper to the famous 25th Rifle Division ... Nobody
could have thought that the name of the young Ukrainian woman would soon be known all over the Soviet Union. «When I went to war, I felt only anger toward Germans for disrupting our peaceful life. But what I saw later begot in me a feeling of unquenchable hatred, which is difficult to express by anything other than a bullet into the heart of a Nazi,» she explained her motives later. The frontline was moving east very quickly, and very soon she saw with her own eyes what the real war was about. Together with her fellow soldiers, she engaged in the first firefights with the Germans and their allies on the outskirts of Odesa. Her prewar rifle skills came in handy. Liudmyla’s acute hearing, excellent tenacity, and developed intuition made her a very good sniper. Also due to her physical training she received at university she could lie motionless in wait for hours. «If I didn’t have physical skills and training, I couldn’t have lain in wait for 18 hours. This was an unhappy nuisance at first;
History | 7
people say that little wit in the head makes much work for the feet. I would often find myself in a bind when I needed to lie and wait until either the krauts would stop shooting or our gunners would get me out,» said Pavlichenko. The profession of a sniper is hard even for strong men. What could possibly be expected from a fragile girl? Liudmyla Pavlichenko’s daily schedule was the following: she woke up long before dawn to be at her position by 4 a.m. Ignoring rain, blistering heat, and biting cold, she sat motionless until nightfall. In these raids, she was always accompanied by another soldier who watched the enemy positions through binoculars and corrected the sniper. The reconnaissance patrols verified the number of Nazis killed by her. Pavlichenko became a celebrity. In the battle of Sevastopol where she participated with her Division she was recognized by small kids and adults. «Oh God, what a miracle! She is tender as a butterfly, but she behaves like a tiger!» they spoke enthusiastically about her. The sniper girl set herself a goal to kill 100 invaders and reached her goal in no time. She increased the number of dead enemies almost every day and her total count reached more than 300 Nazis. The Soviet press wrote about the feats of the girl from Bila Tserkva while those on the other side of the front feared and hated her. The rumors among the Germans had it that the Ukrainian girl had superhuman abilities. She was thought to hear the slightest rustle at a halfkilometer’s distance and to crawl unnoticed to German positions. Having taken someone’s life, she was believed to disappear at once. Of course, there were those willing to eliminate her. According to some reports, during the war, thirty snipers of the Wehrmacht engaged in a duel with her, but none of them scored a victory... In the summer of 1942, Pavlichenko was badly wounded and was sent to a military hospital in the Caucasus. After making a recovery, she was called to Moscow and reported to be sent with a delegation to the United States. This solution had a simple calculation behind it. The USSR leadership did their best to force the Allies to open a second front and for this purpose they needed to change the public opinion. Liudmyla Pavlichenko was an ideal candidate for that mission:
Soviet Canned Meat: A Taste of Army Life
There can be no rest until the last enemy on our land dies
Liudmyla Pavlichenko
she was young and beautiful, she studied at the Faculty of History, was an emotional public speaker, and, most importantly, she was quite famous. Her performance was indeed very emotional. It was her speech that changed the Americans’ attitude toward the war: «Gentlemen, I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist occupants by now. Don’t you think, gentlemen, that it is high time for you stop hiding behind my back?” After returning from the trip, Liudmyla Pavlichenko was dismissed from the front and worked as a shooting instructor at a sniper school. In 1943, the Ukrainian soldier was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. She was the only female sniper who received such a high award during her lifetime.
Large pieces of meat, a thin layer of fat, and a unique flavor… Anyone born in the USSR still remembers the taste of Soviet canned meat. It used to be an integral part of every family’s menu and was a certain symbol of prosperity. Everybody liked the canned meat. It was made from real meat without any harmful preservatives. People ate it with freshly cooked potatoes or buckwheat, pasta, borscht, or even pickles. Even if you had no time to cook, you could still enjoy it! The meat could be spread on bread or sprinkled with chopped onion. It had the power to appease even the most insatiable hunger! Of course, a can of this product was indispensable when summer came – it was the first thing to be thrown in a camper’s backpack. Perpetually hungry students could not imagine their lives without it. Older people, especially those who survived WW II, stored crackers and cans of meat for a rainy day. Interestingly, during the Soviet period, the best canned meat was thought to be the one made specifically for the army. Consequently, getting a hold of it was not easy, since this product was in short supply and almost a delicacy. Not surprisingly, in the Soviet Union the military diet was very important. The servicemen assured the country’s military power and defended its borders. Therefore, they needed to eat well. This was monitored very carefully. One hundred grams of vodka (prescribed by the People’s Commissariat itself), rye bread, and canned meat maintained the morale of soldiers during the Great Patriotic War. Another interesting fact is that back in 1915 the Russian army started to receive canned meat, which could be warmed up right in the field. The bottom of a can could be rotated, and water flooded the quicklime underneath. As a result, the meat could be warmed up without any smoke, which was very important in wartime. This invention by Russian engineer Yevgeny Fyodorov was forgotten soon after World War I. However, it was adopted by the Germans who launched a mass production of this product right before the next war started. One more story about the canned meat comes to mind. In 1966, an old man entered the building of the All-Union Research Institute for the Canned Foods Industry and put on the table a can labeled “Petropavlov Cannery. Stewed Meat. 1916.” The owner of this can had kept it since World War I. It’s hard to believe, but lab tests showed that the meat was perfectly preserved and not at all spoiled after 50 years. Once again, the product proved its superior quality – long-term storage.
8 | Travelling
Lessons Learned from Traveling Around the World from Liudmila Kalabukha This woman has visited 37 countries of the world. She knows how to choose routes for her dangerous journeys and to learn lessons from each trip. Liudmila Kalabukha is a successful Ukrainian businesswoman and at the same time a passionate traveler. When she talks about her adventures, you get the sense that you are following each step of her journey. Teide Volcano on Tenerife: From a Beach to Snow When we were in Spain, we decided to climb the highest peak of the country – Mount Teide, which is located on the Canary island of Tenerife. This volcano was admired by Columbus, Darwin, and Captain Cook. My husband and I walked for about 5 hours up the hardened lava. At the bottom of the volcano the temperature was +30°C, and the top 0°, and in some places minus 1-2°C. Despite the fact that we were well prepared, having put on quite warm clothes on top of t-shirts and shorts, we still froze. In the thin air, my heart jumped out of my chest, and it seemed during the climbing that we would never see the end of the trail, which disappeared in the clouds! We were impressed by Teide’s Martian landscapes, volcanic rocks of all colors, and the incredibly eerie silence – there were no birds, animals, or noisy tourists. Everything was so pristine that we got the impression that we were the first people to set foot on this virgin land.
Culinary Shocks in Cambodia In the legendary city of Angkor (a Cambodian district that was the center of the Khmer Empire), Cambodians sit along the road and sell baliut – a boiled duck egg, which contains an already formed fetus with feathers, cartilage, and beak. My husband refused to eat it. I sat down and, strictly following the seller’s instructions, first drank the amniotic fluid which tasted like chicken broth. Then I squeezed the shell, sprinkled it with a mixture of black pepper and salt, and ate one baliut and then another one. I should mention that I have tried crocodile meat, frogs, turtles, and ostriches, drank a viper’s fresh blood, and even swallowed its throbbing heart. But these «delicacies» were nothing compared to the duck fetuses. At least they were boiled. I heard that they are also eaten raw. I do not know whether I could dare to go that far... Lessons I learned from Cambodia are to be always open to new experiences, and never to be surprised, either in life or in food. Everlasting Traditions of Vietnam Rice grows in spikelets, like rye, but not from a seed, but from seedlings, which are still hand-planted in the Southeast Asia. The whole life of these people is
spent on the ground where they work knee-deep in water. The traditions that had been formed hundreds of years ago are still preserved there. The dead are buried right in the rice fields. Headstones are placed there too. And when these small patches are sold to a complete stranger, it occurs to nobody to remove the graves of somebody’s relatives from their field. So they look after the strangers’ graves and bury their dead nearby. In this country, there are no nursing homes whatsoever! The lesson I learned: when at a cemetery, I always tidy up abandoned neighboring graves and remember the hard-working and noble Vietnamese peasants. Scottish Legends for Sale How to benefit from a legend? The most important thing is that the legend has to be SCARY! That’s what the locals in the area of Loch Ness did when they began to «advertise» their Loch Ness monster, known as Nessie. My husband and I also stared into the cold waters of the lake, froze to death, and got soaked under the perpetual British rain, but we did not see Nessie. Disappointed, we went into the souvenir shop where the legend is commercialized, and took a photo to remember the trip by. The lesson I learned: a skillful PR campaign can turn any legend into a profit. Czech Republic: Be Careful What You Wish For! In this country, I heard a strange legend. A girl named Starosta lived in the early Christian times. She was a Christian and the daughter of the King of Portugal. Her father told her to get
Travelling | 9
married to the King of Sicily – a gray-bearded militant pagan. She pleaded and asked to cancel this marriage, but her father was steadfast in his decision. On the eve of the wedding, the desperate girl spent all night praying for the almighty higher powers to do anything to prevent this marriage. In the morning, maids ran out of her room with cries of horror. It turned out that during that night a long mustache and beard grew on her face. Of course, the groom refused to marry her, and the cruel father crucified the disfigured daughter. Since that time Starosta became the patroness of unhappy married women who travel to Prague, to the monastery of Loreto, to pray to the crucified girl in a wedding dress with a beard and mustache. The lesson I learned: I need to be very clear about what I am and what I am not be ready to do. And when somebody promises everything under the Sun to me, I ask what exactly is meant by that. Petra: The City Built by Giants Petra is a ghost town. So far, nobody has learned its history thoroughly and exhaustively. The city has impressive giant temples, which legend has it were built by giants, a race that preceded people. It is reminiscent of an artificial oasis created in the middle of a rocky desert in line with modern technologies. The ancient people did not only carve huge temples and dwellings from the rocks but also learned to collect water using a dam system, stone tanks, and aqueducts that still operate. How old is Petra? Four thousand years or ten? Who used to live there and who founded it? What is the purpose of such huge buildings, next to which modern man looks like an insect?! What was the size of the people entering these doors? The lesson I learned: all the religions of the world, fairytales of all peoples, and ancient books write about incredibly large people-giants that once inhabited our world. I thought it was a legend. In Petra, I believed it! There it is a fact that does not require any proof.
surgery and the first to develop a plaster bandage for treating fractures. He created anatomical atlases, which are considered to be the most precise in the world. The scientist was never at home: he saved soldiers’ lives in the four wars of the 19th century; he spent long hours in a dissecting room, performing up to 20 autopsies per day or treating someone. His18-years-younger-than-him wife loved him, waited for him at home, and raised his sons. She wasn’t blessed with her own children. When her husband died, she wanted to keep him close to her. When Pirogov was still alive, she ordered a special expensive coffin from Vienna and commissioned his student to develop an innovative method of embalming. This is how the first mausoleum with an embalmed body came to be! It was created in the remote province of Vinnytsia, in the village of Vishnya of the Russian Empire. After embalming Pirogov, they began to embalm the bodies of Communist leaders. What was my lesson after this trip? I saw the actions of a strong woman who proved that love is immortal and can conquer death! Text by Lesia Kichura Photos courtesy of Liudmila Kalabukha
www.ta r a sb u l ba .r u
Ludwig of Bavaria The life story of this king is amazing. Ludwig of Bavaria spent huge sums of money to attract the best artists of his time. He built marvelous castles in his country and dreamed of peace and harmony around the world. Neuschwanstein Castle still towers in the Alps and fascinates tourists, no matter where they come from. It is unlike anything else in the world. The architectural excellence of this world masterpiece amazes you with its refined beauty, grandeur, perfect shapes and taste. He was a king, and it might seem that he could afford to live the way he wanted! However, he was declared insane, then deprived of property, servants, and freedom and put in prison. Ludwig died under mysterious circumstances. Researchers believe it was suicide – the only act of his own will. My sad lesson: even the noblest kings who opposed wars and violence and sought to live according to their dreams could not be entirely free!
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ОТКРЫВАЕМ В РЕСТОРАНАХ ПО АДРЕСАМ: Метро Новокузнецкая, ул. Пятницкая, дом 14 Метро Боровицкая, ул. Моховая, дом 8, стр. 1 Метро Новые Черемушки, ул. Наметкина, д.13Г Метро Парк культуры, Смоленская, Смоленский бульвар, дом 12/19 Метро Ленинский проспект, Ленинский проспект, 37
Ukrainian Love that Conquered Death
Метро Красные Ворота, ул. Мясницкая, дом 47
In the city of Vinnytsia three meters under the ground, in the crypt of a small church, a sealed glass coffin with the body of Nikolai Pirogov has been kept for 134 years already. What did Pirogov make for humankind? He was the first to use anesthesia for surgical operations in the battlefield. He designed a mask for anesthesia, which is used up till now. He was the first to perform plastic
Метро Алексеевская, ул. Бочкова, 3
Метро Бауманская, ул. Бакунинская, дом 23/41 Метро Аэропорт, Ленинградский пр-т, 64
приятного аппетита на свежем воздухе!
Метро Цветной Бульвар, ул. Садовая-Самотечная, д.13/14, к.2 Метро Авиамоторная, ул. Красноказарменная, 6
10 | hobby
‘Tobacco and a Pipe Will Come in Handy for a Cossack on the Road…’ Diplomats smoke it to gain time for making important decisions; it was used to fight off diseases and sorrow; writers and scientists tried to find their inspiration in it. This small object became iconic and even sacral for Cossacks who were ready to give up their best weapon and even a wife for it. Taras Bulba paid for it with his life… We are talking about a pipe, which to this day for many people is an important ritual object. Serhiy Trukhymovych, a member of the Lviv Pipe Club, talked to us about tobacco, pipes, and interesting traditions associated to them. Pipe as a ritual
Pipe in the life of Cossacks
Smoking a pipe requires silence, for it’s a ritual. First, you need to take it and carefully pack it with tobacco, and only then you can start smoking. After it gets cold, it should be well cleaned. All this requires time, skill, and effort. There are people, however, who smoke pipe all the time, without even taking it out of their mouth, but that is a different story altogether. I can surely say that when you try pipe tobacco smoking, you won’t want to go back to smoking regular cigarettes. It’s a perfect way to meditate and relax. Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Immanuel Kant, and many other famous people smoked it. All these people enjoyed tobacco and spoke about the positive influence their pipe had on their life. There is one more conspicuous fact. According to the rules of diplomacy, you cannot disturb a person who is lighting or smoking a pipe. Often, it is used to take a time-out and think over an important issue. As such, it has been said that fool do not smoke pipes.
It is likely that Cossacks picked up pipe smoking from the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. They often fought and met with each other, and thus a cultural exchange took place, because even a war is a type of communication. We all remember a similar case with coffee and Yuriy Kulchytskyi who brought to Vienna from the Turks. Cossacks even borrowed the Ukrainian word “tiutiun” (tobacco) from the Turkish language. It is known that, at that time, there were popular “nose-warmers” or “burunkas” pipes, which came to us from the Ottoman Empire. In fact, each Cossack had his own pipe. It helped them to relax and brace themselves before a fight; it kept them from falling asleep when on watch, healed wounds, and even relieved stress. Besides, there was a so called community pipe, which belonged to a unit of the Cossacks troops. Usually, it had a very expensive finishing with decorations and a long chibouk. It was smoked collectively, when the Cossacks were trying to solve a problem. In modern language, it is a certain form of team building, when a ritual object bands everyone together. People who visited Ukraine at that time wrote first of all that Cossacks always held a pipe in their mouths and called it their mother or sister. By the way, there is a well-known song where Pet-
ro Sahaydachnyi says, “I won’t bother myself with a wife. Tobacco and a pipe will come in handy for a Cossack on the road…” Pipe and Taras Bulba We all remember a story about Taras Bulba who was captured only because he had lost his pipe and didn’t want to move on without it. When he came back and searched for it in the grass, “a band rushed up and seized him by his mighty shoulders.” Obviously, the pipe for the Cossack was valuable not only because of the expensive finishing. Above all, it had a sacral meaning. An aromatic cherry pipe and a damned aspen one Pipes were carved out of wood: cherry, lime, and nut. Some of them were made of clay. Also, there were porcelain pipes brought from other countries. It was believed that a pipe should never be made of aspen – the damned tree, on which Judas hanged himself. Often, pipes were decorated with sacral ornaments “karbs” – carvings that protected a Cossack from bad luck. Such signs were also carved on kobzas, banduras, staffs, etc. Modern pipes are usually made of briar. By the way, in Ukraine, there are many gifted craftsmen whose works are very popular. Among them are
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Zenon Palchevslyi, Oleksandr Antonenko, Ivan Antoneko, Ruslan Sharyha, Oleksandr Bryshuta, Oleksiy Plashkov, and Valeriy Ryzhenko. Cossacks’ tobacco blends Researchers are still disputing what tobacco Cossacks smoked, namely the recipes of blends that were lost long ago. It is known that depending on what was needed, different herbs were added to the tobacco. For example, Cossacks smoked oregano, which contains thymol and carvacrol, because it helped them to ease their nerves. It also helped to cure stomach diseases. Women added lovage to the tobacco to attract Cossacks and protect them from danger on their campaigns. Mint and St. John’s wort were used to calm down. Cossacks also smoked dried leaves and flowers of sloe to purify blood after being wounded. Wormwood had a sacral meaning. It was thought to able to help a person banish bad thoughts. Melilot or yellow sweet clover was smoked by old fishermen who spent long periods of time waist deep in water. It’s no suprise since it contains coumarin, which possesses antispasmodic properties. It is also interesting that this agent depresses the nervous system and has a hallucinogenic effect. As such, this herb was added to tobacco after a fight when a Cossack “… could not forget the view of a dying enemy or a sworn brother.” This is also shown in the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” where the Don Cossack Hryhoriy Melekhov in order to cast away his sorrow smoked “… a blend: dried sweet clover and roots of green homegrown tobacco – “djubec.” The blends were often smoked by kharakternyky – Cossacks who had superhuman abilities, and neither bullet nor sword could enter their body. That’s why a socalled state of invincibility could also be reached with the help of these herbs. Snuff Tobacco Cossacks not only smoked to-
«Taras Bulba» chain of restaurants we present a CD of Ukrainian classical music in modern arrangements from Bulba Press.
bacco, but also insufflated it. For this they carried special horns. Usually, “the snuffers” were old men who didn’t want to bother themselves with a pipe, since it took some time to prepare and smoke it… And here you take it, smell, and that’s it. It was said that a pipe warmed the heart and snuff tobacco cleaned the brain. Championships in slow pipe smoking Regularly, championships in slow pipe smoking are held in the world. They gather partici-
pants from dozens of countries. The main goal is to smoke a pipe as long as possible. The rules at these championships are very strict. All participants get identical pipes, three grams of tobacco of the same kind, and only two matches to light it up. Referees and judges monitor the entire process. Recently, we hosted a championship called The Galician Pipe. The winner was a participant from Turkey who smoked his pipe for almost two hours. If I’m not mistaken, the world record is nearly three hours. Imagine that a person can smoke one pipe for so long! The tobacco should neither burn too quickly, nor go out. These are the real champions! We are grateful to the Fortuna Cigar House for help in organizing the interview. Text by Stepan Hrytsiuk Photo by Yuriy Helytovych
The exclusive new disc will be available for sale in our restaurants! Find time in your life for our music!
12 | news from korchma
Korchma Steps Out of Its Comfort Zone
The Korchma Taras Bulba restaurant chain launched a new and exciting show called The Comfort Zone. This is a comical show that engages both our employees and guests. It is unique because 70% of the program is improvisation, which makes the show completely unpredictable both for the participants and the audience. By the way, anyone can participate in our Comfort Zone. But first dare to step out of yours... Each program is centered around five members of our staff – anyone from the CEO to a waiter. The challenge is that while a presenter explains to a participant what role he or she will play in The Comfort Zone, the actors of Bulba Show are already waiting for them in a back room. Moreover, they already have a script ready, anticipating any turn of events from the beginning to the end of the program, and the participants are supposed to improvise all the time. Consequently, each pro-
gram participant will find him or herself in an unexpected situation and will get a chance to try on a new image. You should be there to see how they will try to get out of the cunning actors’ clutches! The first show brought together our frequent guest Olha Snurnitsyna, manager of the bakery shop Liubov Prokhorenko, representative of the Restaurant Control Service Boris Guseinov, training manager of the chain Ruslan Vrangel, and Director General of Korchma Taras Bulba Anastasia Ivanova. Olha Snurnitsyna played a girl who went to a fortuneteller to find a man because she failed to do it by herself. In real life, our guest has a wonderful husband and she’s expecting a baby soon. That’s why it was so interesting to watch her play, both for her husband and the audience. Liubov Prokhorenko coped with her role just perfectly. She had to play a housewife. The audience
laughed uncontrollably when they listened to a story about a daughter who took missing cakes to school, a daughter’s godfather who served in the police and was involved with the main participant in some suspicious case. Then there appeared a representative of the Federal Migration Service and found some illegal immigrants in her closet... What happened next was worth watching! The representative of the Restaurant Control Service Boris Guseinov had to perform in the famous fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood.” He played the wolf that ate the grandmother. The part with Ruslan Vrangel was funny from the first minute. Ruslan found himself in a mental institution, wrapped in a straitjacket because the doctors said that he was violent, went around biting nurses, and tried to escape from the hospital. Ruslan shared a room with another patient who hadn’t left the hospital for 15 years. Also an imaginary clown friend came to Ruslan, played different games with him and asked riddles. Director General of Korchma Taras Bulba restaurant chain Anastasia Ivanova became a young actress who found herself on a film set of a children’s cartoon about Luntik. Nastia, who had to wear Luntik’s suit, had to sing songs, run about the lawn, catch butterflies, and fight with a wolf. In a word, she had to do everything that the film director said.
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Looking back at it, we can safely say that all the characters of the program were versatile and interesting. The show is unique because The Comfort Zone gives each person an opportunity to discover an actor inside. And many of us have hidden talents that we never knew we had. The next show will have completely new characters with new exciting stories! If you look for a place where you can both eat to your heart’s content and also have a bit of fun, then come to our Comfort Zone. If you would like to participate in the next program, please contact an administrator of any Korchma Taras Bulba restaurant. Feedback from the Audience We saw five different stories with five different characters. Some scenes were good and some lacked drive and enthusiasm. I think that the creators should choose participants with greater care to be sure that they have an intellectual sense of humor. It is also better to add more sketches where participants have to act based on a script. I especially liked the show, «It’s me, Luntik!» All in all, it was a very good start. I wish you success and development! Way to go! Ruslan Vrangel
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April 1 was a special day for the entire Korchma Taras Bulba chain. On that day, the youngest of our restaurants – the one on Odintsovo – celebrated its first birthday. The birthday team was congratulated by the staff of other Taras Bulba restaurants and did its best to throw a fabulous party. The guests were treated to live music, and the organizers prepared fun games and contests for the audience. The party culminated with a delicious cake. The festivities lasted until the wee hours of the night, but the time just flew by. The Odintsovo restaurant may be just one year old, but it has already made friends and gained loyal patrons for life.
The Korchma on Odintsovo Has Turned One!
14 | menu
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