Korchma en 08 15 preview

W e h a ve o n l y fre s h a n d s a vo r y n e w s!

August 2015 | № 8 (143)

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Borsch is Our Everything!

The Globe in Your Pocket The Celestial Empire: Theaters of the Future, Scorpio Barbecue and Songs for Mao

Legends of the Blue Screen FedirStryhun: “A Film Is Always a Lottery”

Vyshyvanka Couture

Oksana Karavanska and her embroidered shirts for the third millennium.

Wi-Fi in all restaurants

24/7 food delivery and hotline:

8 (495) 780-77-44 www.tarasbulba.ru

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2 | bon appetit!

Borsch is Our Everything!

Borsch is not only delicious, aromatic, healthy, but indeed a cult dish. It has been well said that “Life without borsch is like fish soup without bream”. Its home country is Ukraine, but it is also hard to imagine traditional Russian, Byelorussian, Polish and Lithuanian cuisines without it. Moreover, in each national cuisine, it acquired its peculiar flavor. Its taste became new, acquired new tinges. There is no need to say that two housewives preparing to the same recipe will never cook two identical borsches – each woman will add something new to it.

There are plenty of ways of its preparation and combination of ingredients. However, what is for sure is that real borsch is impossible without beetroot (buryak in Ukrainian). Beetroot is first stewed, fried or boiled and only then added to broth.

The vegetables most commonly added to borsch are white cabbage, potatoes, carrot, onion, bell peppers, tomatoes (tomato paste), garlic, g r e e n e r y and spices.

The basis for borsch could be meat, chicken, or mushroom broth. The most delicious borsch is prepared using two or more types of meat. It is important to cook it for 1.5-2 hours on a slow fire, skimming off the foam all the time for borsch to be rich and transparent.

Those people who like the taste of smoked meat use smoked ribs or sausage.

Ifthedishispreparedwithoutmeat, you can add beans, slightly roasted flour, mushrooms, pork fat with garlic, and even fish.

A peculiar borsch is cooked using pickled vegetables (beetroot and carrot) or sauerkraut.

Sourness is needed not only for the taste, but also for preservationof nice red color of beetroot. For this, housewives often use vinegar or lemon juice. It is interesting that in West Ukraine, borsch is cooked without cabbage and potatoes, only with beetroot and sauté of carrot and onion with an addition of cherry or apple juice.

Borsch is served with sour cream, green onion, donuts under garlic sauce or with brown bread, or dumplings (in Poltava region, for example).

Borsch is popularnationwide not only for its nice taste, but also for its nutritional value.

Why is this cult dish so wholesome?

Firstly, it is rich in vitamins: • Vitamin C – antioxidant, stimulates immunity; • Vitamin K – regulates blood coagulation; • Vitamin A – stimulates visual organs; • B vitamins (B1, B6, B9, B12) – “beauty vitamins”, positively influence metabolic processes, improve memory and nervous system.

Besides, vegetables in borsch are rich in cellulose that eliminatestoxins, radionuclides and other waste from the body. Due to its ingredients, even the most common borsch very influences the human organism in a most positive way by: • actingas a choleretic; • normalizingmetabolism; • havinggood influence on the heart function; • improvingintestinal peristalsis; • havingan antisclerotic effect.

The uniqueness of borsch lies in that that, by changing ingredients, you can get thick, highcalorie or light dietary, however always tasty and healthy dish. People who take care of their figurecan prepare borsch with chicken broth or with no meat at all, adding some kidney beans, mushrooms, etc.

Amountofsalt could be also reduced and replaced with herbs. It is not necessary to forgo sour cream, just a less heavy one could be used. Tocompare, the

bon appetit! | 3

calorie content of different kinds of borsch per 100 g is provided below: • With meat broth – 78 kcal; • With chicken broth – 50 kcal; • Lean borsch with light sour cream – 36 kcal; • Borsch without meat and sour cream – 33 kcal.

This said, borsch can be included into the diet of a girl getting thin or a man doing manual work – all you need to do is just slightly change the recipe.

For centuries of its existence, borsch has become not only the staple of national cuisine, but also the centerpiece in the cultures of many nations, especially Ukrainian and Russian. There are lots of proverbs about it: “But for all tales, the borsch is getting cold”; “Have I either dug over your boundary path, or sneezed into your borsch?”; “Lunch is not lunch without borsch, and borsch is not borsch without beetroot”; “One hundred housewives means one hundred different varieties of borsch” etc.

Many interesting traditions are connected with the dish. For example, in the ZaporizhianSich, young Cossacks were checked“for strength” by highly peppered, so-called “wise” borsch. Red

color of the soup was a symbol of good luck and wealth, that’s why it was cooked for weddings.

According to other sayings, people believed that the soul of the deceased went off with the borsch steam, that’s why the dish was served at the funeral repast.

The legend dish is also mentioned in the literature. It is mentioned in The Aeneid by Kotlyarevskyi, The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, A Cloud in Trousers by Mayakovski, etc. There is a notable quotation in The Twelve Chairs by Ilf and Petrov, where the Ukrainian borsch is presented as part of the lavish dinner at the house of Alexander Yakovlevich,assistant warden of the second home of Stargorod Social Security Administration, “the bashful chiseler”: “Pot luck that day happened to be a bottle of Zubrovka, home-pickled mushrooms, minced herring, Ukrainian borsch with firstgrade meat, chicken with rice, and stewed apples.”

Talks about borsch can be endless, and isn’t it better to go to the kitchen and prepare your own culinary masterpiece?

from the Korchma Chef

Во рту Артёма сразу накопилось столько слюны, что он не смог говорить. Первая же ложка ударила в голову так, словно Артём залпом выпил чудесной, пламенной, с царского стола водки, а потом сам царь жарко поцеловал его, скажем, в лоб. Артём одновременно вспотел и стал полностью, до последней жилки, счастлив. Счастье это желало длиться и длиться. Этот борщ был не просто едой – он был постижением природы и самопостижением, продолжением рода и богоискательством, обретением покоя и восторженным ликованием всех человеческих сил, заключённых в горячем, расцветающем теле и бессмертной душе. Они съели по три тарелки, пока бидон не опустел. Несколько раз Артём едва не перекусил свою ложку.

Text: Olga SINYUGINA

SPECIAL BORSHCH KORCHMA with meat Served with home-made sour cream and fresh Pampushki with garlic 200/300 g 190/270 rub

Recipe for Borsch

О нем пишут гранды…

Захар Прилепин, писатель

LENTEN BORSHCH WITH SMOKE-CURED PEAR According to the recipe of the chef IRINA CHEREPOK. Served with sour cream 200/300 g 130/180 rub

If you decide to cook borsch, soak kidney beans for 6-8 hours, sort and wash them beforehand. Then wash the meat well in cold water and put it on the fire.

When it begins to boil, thoroughly skim off the foam and turn down the fire. Cook it until the meat starts to fall off the bones.

How to prepare ingredients • Boil kidney beans; • Peel the beetroot, wash it and cut into strips, then fry in the vegetable oil or rendered fat. For the beetroot not to lose its color, add lemon juice and sugar; • Separately sauté the onions and carrots. Cut the bell peppers and tomatoes into strips. After vegetables have cooked,

add tomato paste and mix everything thoroughly; • Cut cabbage into strips.

All done!

How to cook borsch • Put potatoes into the broth, cook them. Then add kidney beans and vegetable sauté. When everything begins to boil, add part of the cabbage; • Add salt and pepper; • Add the rest of beetroot sauté and another part of cabbage.

• Add salt, sugar to taste, 2-3 bay leaves, leave to boil for 2-3 minutes, cover.

Let it draw for some time.

Serve the dish with garlic, greens and sour cream.

Bon appétit!

4 | guest

He is one of the most famous Ukrainian actors and played quite a number of film roles. He can talk about his stage impersonations and to wax nostalgically about people he used to know for hours on end. They are the legendary Ivan Mykolaychuk, Leonid Bykov and many others. The audience remembers him for his part in the popular film The Lost Letter based on Nikolai Gogol’s short story. He brilliantly played the part of Cossack Ivan and his brother Andriy. Our today’s issue of BulbaNEWS features an exclusive interview with actor Fedir Stryhun.

Fedir Stryhun:

«A Film Is Always a Lottery» – You were close friends with actor Ivan Mykolaychuk. People say he often acted as a “battery on the film set.” In particular, during the shooting of The Lost Letter, he would come up with something unbelievable that would otherwise be difficult to achieve following director’s instructions. Can you recall any of such cases?

When we all came to see it, we were in awe – it was so beautiful. So we filmed the enchanted lake scene there. This is how Ivan’s cinematographic vision helped us out. He had another peculiar feature. His first take always turned out to be the most successful. Whenever they tried to shoot more takes, they would always turn out worse and worse. He was an actor of the first take.

– I can tell you hundreds of stories about how this film was made. Ivan had a motto: “You shoot a film despite everything!” When there was no budget for a full-scale shooting, Mykolaychuk would come up with a trick that would make the episode look even better than if it had been fully funded. For example, the enchanted lake scene was to be filmed in the botanical garden in Sochi.

When they calculated the costs, they saw that we would need to triple our budget for the film. Then Ivan said: “Why would you do something like that?

I’m going to find you a lake here.” There used to be a hydroelectric power station and a dried bog in Krasnogorivka (Poltava Region), where the shooting took place. He came up with the idea to pump water into the bog. It took a week to fill.

– There was an interesting episode in your biography: something related to stealing a copy of the The Lost Letter film footage?

– You need to understand that the film was banned from release and stayed on a shelf for seventeen years. So Ivan got this idea that it could get lost and then no one would be able to find it. So he came up with the idea to steal a copy of the film and keep it until better times. That’s what we did. It was all a joke with a noble purpose behind it.

– People say Sergey Paradzhanov especially liked this film?

– It was his favorite. Despite being banned, the

film was shown at the studio – to delegations, to guests. Once, we bumped into Paradzhanov at the Dovzhenko Film Studio, and he started shouting: “Look! The two geniuses walking! They don’t even realize how genius they are! They revealed Gogol’s secrets! You have no idea who you are.” He started hugging us and he was sincerely happy that we made such a good movie.

– Who was Ivan Mykolaychuk to you?

– I had few friends in my life as close as Ivan was.

Every time I came to Kyiv on some business, I would stay at his place. We used to stay up late talking.

Ivan often read me his new scripts – first drafts. We never had an argument throughout all the years of our friendship. We felt like we were from the same village. Our companionship was based on songs.

He would start humming some melody and I would catch up immediately, and vice versa. Sometimes he asked with astonishment: “How could it be that I’m from Bukovina and you’re from Cherkassy Region?”

We were always united by songs. I liked him a lot.

I clearly saw all his flaws and vices, but his feature number one was his talent.

guest | 5

Specifically for The Guide, Tractor No. 4, manufactured on the first day of work of Kharkiv Tractor Factory, was taken down from its pedestal and refurbished. Estimated cost of this renovated machine now makes up over one million US dollars.

– In addition to his talent, which of Ivan’s features did you like most?

Ivan was never ashamed of being Ukrainian, never ashamed of his mother tongue. He never felt inferior; he was ever so dignified. Ivan Mykolaychuk, like Sergey Paradzhanov and Oleksandr Dovzhenko, is a great Ukrainian for me.

– Film industry put you in touch with many talented people of that time. One of them was Leonid Bykov – a Ukrainian actor and director.

What do you remember about him?

– Whenever I met Leonid Fedorovych, I felt that I knew him since we were kids. It’s a pity that he had

to leave the set of The Lost Letter when he fell off the horse and broke his leg.

All the films with his participation were very popular. We immediately hit it off with him. He was a good man. He and my wife co-starred in Maksym Perepelytsia. He would always send us greetings with friends, kept tabs on our theater work. He was a modest and sensitive actor. I haven’t met a more modest or sensitive man in my life. Whenever we met I always cheered up and things went better for me throughout the day. Everyone adored him at the studio. My heart would skip a beat every time I thought I was lucky to know such a person as Leonid Bykov. He was a naturally talented actor. He liked to play football with village boys. It made him so happy. His jokes

were always up to the point and we remembered those years after he told them.

– Ukraine submitted the film The Guide for the 66th Film Festival in Cannes. You also played a part in that film, didn’t you?

– Yes, I did. I got a call from the director – Oles Sanin – and was offered a part. I respect Sanin a lot, but I agreed to give my response only after reading the script. Frankly, I was contemplating refusal because I didn’t have time. Oles sent me the script. I was captivated, you don’t get that many quality scripts these days. The story, on which the film was based, turned out new and unexpectedly interesting. (The Guide is based on real events about 200 kobza players who, in 1934, were invited to an alleged Academy of Science symposium in Kharkiv. Instead, they were all taken to the woods and shot to death.) I agreed to be involved. I felt at ease working with his team, my scenes were filmed in three days. I have very warm memories of that shooting.

– You once called cinema a firebird. What did you mean by that metaphor?

– When you work in a theatre, you’re always engaged in a creative process. You perform on stage, you work on your part, you rehearse it dozens of times. In other words, you improve your acting skills. Cinema is different. You never know whether you will be cast or not, what script you will get, what director you will work with… It is all a kind of a lottery. When you’re lucky to be part of a real “crew” who want to make a high-quality film, you become a happy person, it is as if you guessed a number combination and hit the lottery. Cinema employs your talents and skills you received in college, from your professor, from your cooperation with a theater director. Cinema is in a hurry to employ all of this, there is no time to stop and analyze it.

Text: Lesya Kichura Photos courtesy of Fedir Stryhun and Archives of Maria Zankovetska Ukrainian National Drama Theater

6 | History

August 1st

Feast Day of St.Seraphim of Sarov

August 2nd St.Elias’ Day

August 6th

Feast Day of Martyrs and Passion-Bearers Princes Boris and Gleb

August 8th

Mountaineer Day

8

августа

«Seventeen Moments of Spring»: Anniversary of the Cult TV Series

Mountaineer Day

August 12th

International Youth Day

August 14th

Savior of the Honey Feast Day Beginning of the Assumption Fast (till August 27th)

August 18th

Anniversary of the Korchma on Leninskiy Ave.

August 19th

Feast of the Transfiguration Savior of Apples Feast Day

August 22nd

St. Matthew the Apostle’s Feast Day

August 24th

Ukraine’s Independence Day

August 28th

Assumption of the Holy Virgin

August 29th

Savior of the Bread Feast Day

August 30th

Anniversary of the Korchma in Shmitovskiy Proezd

August 31st

Feast of the Icon of the Most Holy Queen of All

On August 11th, 1973, a new TV series titled Seventeen Moments of Spring was released in the USSR. It portrayed a Soviet spy who managed to get into high places of Nazi Germany. The first episode was aired on a Saturday night, at 7.45 pm. It seemed that the premiere was anticipated by the entire country.

The series was indeed exceptionally successful. The first episode was watched by at least fifty million people – the audience that only a few present-day blockbusters can gather. For the next twelve nights, city streets were deserted and crime levels plummeted, while the consumption of electricity and water skyrocketed. Everyone was at home watching TV. The TV series’ godfather was the Soviet writer Yulian Semenov. It was his genius that stood behind Stierlitz and other characters of this multiepisode TV film. Before that, Semenov worked mainly in a different genre, he was writing about lives of diplomats or North Pole explorers. In 1964, Semenov took a U-turn in his writing career and published a thrilling novel 38 Petrovka about Moscow Crime Investigation Department detectives.

The book sold out immediately. People wanted to get it, talk about it, discuss it. Despite all the fame he enjoyed from his criminal detective, the author moved on to a political detective. Two years later, he finished the novel No Password Required, where the main protagonist was a Soviet spy working under the code name Maksim Isaev. That novel also found lots of admirers, and so Yulian Semenov wrote two sequels – Major Storm and Seventeen Moments of Spring.

That was the time when the novels fell into the hands of Yuriy Andropov, the KGB chief. He voiced his gratitude and offered the author access to the archives of the powerful security service to complement his novels with more credible details. What’s more, the Committee for State Security (KGB) chief was the initiator of the novel’s screen adaptation. He said that the book was successful enough, but a TV film would be much more influential. It is assumed that Andropov and his employees personally reviewed all the

filmed scenes and revised them. There is even an anecdote related to his involvement in the production. He noticed that all German soldiers in all scenes were played by Jewish actors. He was indignant: “What army are you showing – German or Jewish?” The scenes were re-shot with hastily imported five dozens of blond cadets from the Estonian KGB High School.

Initially, Yulian Semenov submitted his script to Lenfilm, but then the right to develop it into a film was won by Tatiana Lioznova from the Gorky Film Studio. Lots of high officials tried to prevent her nomination, but she managed to convince the KGB officials that, despite being a woman, she was capable of making a film about tough men. She also made her own amendments to the script and introduced several new characters. In particular, she introduced Frau Zaurich into her film. You can remember the scene at the beginning of the first episode where Stierlitz takes her out for a walk in the wood.

Lioznova explained her decision: she introduced new characters to get a deeper insight into the protagonist’s character.

“Who do you think he’s taking out? Himself. He needs to get out of this hell of shoulder straps,” she said.

Frau Zaurich’s role was meant for the great Faina Ranevskaya. But Semenov wrote her role in a hurry and without particular enthusiasm. When Ranevskaya received the script she exclaimed: “What is this

History | 7

Vana Tallinn: The Legend of the Old Town

nonsense? How can anyone play it?”, and she refused to film.

Another little known fact is that the lead part was written for Archil Gomiashvili, wellrecognized for his role of Ostap Bender from Twelve Chairs. His casting was supported by Semenov himself. They also negotiated with Innokentiy Smoktunovsky. However Tatiana Lioznova was adamant – the protagonist has to be different. And so she brought in Viacheslav Tikhonov – a romantic and enigmatic actor.

Curiously enough, after the film went off the air, packs of letters started coming to the film studio. The majority of them were addressed to Tikhonov. Soviet women made him a symbol of male beauty.

The initial script didn’t contain the most memorable scene of the TV series, in which Stierlitz meets his wife in a coffee shop. These scenes were shot in the course of filming. They were also inspired and implemented by Tatiana Lioznova.

Another interesting story is related to Muller who was played by Leonid Bronevoy.

The part was first offered to Vsevolod Sanaev, but he refused with indignation: “I am a Secretary of the MosFilm Party Organization, no way I’m playing a fascist!” For his part, Bronevoy was offered a largely symbolic fee of 2,435 rubles. Distributed equally over the three years

of filming, it made 68 rubles per month. He didn’t feel particularly excited about playing a despised German for such a ridiculous pay.

However the director managed to convince him: “Just imagine what this part might mean to you!” She was right in the end, and Bronevoy later admitted that the part of Muller was a turning point in his career.

Yuriy Vizbor was another actor who tried to refuse his part only to change his mind later.

In order to create a dangerous personality of a fascist superior, the actor had to put in cotton tampons up his nose and to pad his uniform with foam plastic sponge for a bigger and more impressive look. Vizbor’s voice was too soft and tender so, in the final cut of the film, it was dubbed by another actor – Solovyev, from the Film Actors’ Theatre.

From the start of the production, the crew tried to make the film as credible as possible.

The filmmakers spent hours on end watching documentary reels from the times of WWII. None of the costumes was made without the involvement of a historical consultant. Colonel Braun who used to serve in intelligence rendered his valuable expertise. Everything, from epaulettes to the tiniest insignia and buttonholes, was designed meticulously. It was rumoured that a hundred white shirts were made for Stierlitz alone, because filming took place in multiple locations, and there was no time to wash them, so they had to ensure that the chief spy always looked smart.

Another interesting fact: Tikhonov’s hands were never shown up-close in the film. When his character was drawing something or building structures out of matches, one of his doubles was used. The explanation was trivial: Tikhonov had a tattoo “Glory” on his hand, which he made in his early youth. It didn’t quite fit the romantic image created by the director.

The resulting film was a popular, even iconic, movie. Several generations of viewers have seen and enjoyed it. People still use quotes from the film’s characters and make up jokes around them.

Text: Stepan HRYTSYUK

If you happened to be born and raised during the USSR times, you definitely remember your business trips or vacations in the Baltic countries. To many of us, it was as close an experience as traveling abroad.

The moment you boarded the special train Moscow – Tallinn, you got immersed into a different atmosphere. The Baltics met you with the coziness of their groomed cities, excellent coffee and premium service. They also offered wonderful liquor Vana Tallinn, which is still produced in Estonia. It differed from other imperfect Soviet alcoholic drinks by its refined taste.

On our way back from a business trip or a vacation, we always brought a bottle or two of this dark-brown liquor. The production of Vana Tallinn was launched in 1962, but it is still very popular and remains number one exported product in the Estonian food industry. In 2013, the factory celebrated the release of its one-hundred-millionth bottle.

It is interesting to know that Vana Tallinn was created by a team of specialists. The recipe of the new beverage started to develop in the early 1960s when hard spirits were especially popular. That was also the time of different production plans and five-year plans. As part of one of such plans, the Estonian Republic was assigned a task to create a high-quality and distinctive alcoholic product. It had to be a strong stuff, but also mellow to the taste.

Process engineers immediately set down to work. Experts spent lots of time and efforts and finally succeeded. In 1962, the rum-based liquor was launched to the market. It had a unique taste with underlying natural components, such as citrus oils, cinnamon and vanilla. The liquor was a product of cooperation with many friendly socialist countries.

The rum was imported from Cuba, and the spices from India. The corporate ties remain unbroken to this day, except that Cuban rum was replaced with Jamaican one.

All other ingredients for Vana Tallinn, just as in the past, are imported from various countries of the world, but mainly from Indonesia and China. That is why one bottle of the liquor can be quite pricy.

The manufacturers assure us that they only use the best possible ingredients. For instance, one cinnamon stick for Vana Tallinn might cost up to three euros.

However, if you make up your mind to push out the boat and taste the legendary drink, remember it is recommended to serve it alone, without any additions. You may choose to place a few ice rocks into your glass. Some people also like having Vana Tallinn with coffee or tea.

8 | Travelling

The Celestial Empire: Theaters of the Future, Scorpio Barbecue and Songs for Mao. Chapter 1

The Globe in Your Pocket In between my trips I hardly have enough time to get tired of Moscow when it’s time to fly off to China. It was a trip inspired by 19th-centry adventurers. One day, a big Chinese boss came into our restaurant and invited me to China for the opening of our Korchma. Like explorer Papanin drifting on an ice floe, I was driving at a snail’s pace in Moscow’s stretched-out traffic jams to the Sheremetyevo Airport. My flight was scheduled for a rather inconvenient time – 9.40 pm, and I had to check in by 7 pm, which meant driving out at 6 pm, at the height of traffic jams when all commuters are driving from Moscow back to the suburbs. Some of them travel up to 100 km outside the Moscow Belt Road. Watching

them makes me wonder: would the traffic jams be much smaller if the commuters compared the cost of living in Moscow with the money and time spent on the road – 3-4 hours daily, sometimes even up to 5 hours?

The most horrible places at this time of day are traffic circles. They reveal the worst in all of us! No one lets anyone pass and so the giant ouroboros is biting its own tail. The traffic is at a standstill.

5-7 small accidents along the 20-km stretch of the road, but everyone is curious to slow down and take a look. In The Bull’s Hour, Efremov wrote that most of the onlookers do it not out of their wish to help out but just to watch. In our days, they also want to video it on their phone and share with friends. The seconds multiplied by thousands of cars equal long hours of waiting. This is wasted time, fuel and money. I was lucky to drive through in no time. I know a secret method for being on time. No line at the check-in, no one at the passport control! Whether it was the recession or just Wednesday to blame, but it was obviously not a busy traveling day.

The flight was so uneventful it’s not even worth writing about. A movie – Focus with Will Smith about con men and grifters – and a four-hour nap later, we landed in Beijing in the middle of the night. The city was covered with smog – it might be a simple night mist or a result of a bad environment.

Despite its shining novelty and impressive size, our Aeroflot Airbus got parked somewhere in a distant corner. We were taken to the terminal by bus.

At the same time, KLM, Air France and Ukraine International Airlines planes were standing at the jetways. Why was that – because of sanctions or because of disregard to the big brother?

When I came out I was greeted by a driver. He was disappointed because he was expecting three people instead of just me. Two hours of driving on good but otherwise unimpressive toll highway. Just like in our country, behind the fences of wealthy golf clubs – the misery and tears of the poor. Once, when Sven Tumba Johansson was playing there, young boys

were fishing gold balls out of the neck-deep pond, fumbling for them with their feet at the bottom.

They returned the balls for $1 apiece, while stores sold them for $5. That was their business. They must have grown into bankers by now.

My hotel was quite decent. Sasha and Olga arrived. At 5 pm we were taken to the theater. It is a grand building, like all the buildings around here.

All the major troupes performedhere: the Midori, the Mariinsky, the Bolshoi, but also the Germans, the Americans, the Danes, the Swedes and others.

The theater is large, deserted and quiet during the day. It doesn’t look like a place I would invest in, but I’m ready to help them launch aKorchma with their own money.

Travelling | 9

We inspected the kitchen, the tea restaurant and the piano salon. Then we were invited to dinner by Mr. Chen – the theater director. With twelve dishes served, all of themoffered new tastes and products. Snails, mussels, fish. Beans and crabs looked familiar.Everything feelscheerful and well-minded.

Chen’s wife keeps two greyhounds in the theater’s patio. This makes a very so slightimpressionof Russia. After dinner, we went for coffee to the nearest mall. There areStarbucks and Costa Coffee here.

Prada, Gucci, Gabbana and other high-end outlets with Tiffany and Cartier remind me of the Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates. The prices are higher than in Moscow. The wealthier the consumers, the higher the prices.

My computer doesn’t work. There is no Facebook, YouTube and other diversions, so I can’t post tomy online journal. Not in real time. Before falling asleep I remember crowds of dancing Chinese and wonder why I, along with another hundred or two of my compatriots, cannot dance to some unsophisticated and fluent tune.

My hotel was out of water next morning. All sweaty after my crossfit WOD, I dried off, got dressed and left. I was annoyed to notice that the commercial director, who came to pick us up that morning, was 15 minutes late. We went to see the theater’s roof. The roof turned out to be a vast empty upperfloor space of 8,000 square meters. The German architect who designed it planned a big restaurant there. He even installed food elevators. It all looks very unusual in large open spaces. Chinese kitchensnormally have deep tubs, frying pans, ovens large enough to burn bricks. Pancake makers are 1m in diameter. A little Chinese chef is in charge of everything.

They cook everything on gas, they have no fear of gas. Even the top theater’s floor has a large gas pipe installed on it. China consumes a lot of coal for heating and industry. Gas is their fuel of the future. If they get hooked to

our gas pipe, the Gazprom shareholders will be living in an easy street. We will hardly benefit from it, but we can always cheer for our luckier compatriots.

Solidarity doesn’t make a great nation, the wealth of the few and the poverty of many makes a great nation. While we’re killing each other over territories, which belong to us anyway, while we forget that we shed more than enough blood on them, while we fall farther back into the past and destroy everything built over the centuries, other nations launch manufacturing of $1-worth music boxes and build theaters of the future. We are used to catching up, to sobering up after a hangover. Too bad, many of us won’t live to see the happy day.

We descended into a patio with glass elevators and paved fountains. A huge music fountain in an artificial lake. They say this yard once hosted a party for2,000 guests. Like astronauts on another planet, we looked on at a huge starship. We had a tour ofthe auditorium and the set design. Everythinglookedvery impressive, built in no time at all. I once heard that they built 200 metro stations in three years in some city in China. Shanghai used to have two metro lines in 2011, now it has six of them. The Party is very skilled at mobilizing the masses. You inevitably get impressed with the result of one billion people’s work. Even the smog covering the sun does not spoil the feeling.

You might even think it’s a permanent mist.

We had Peking duck for lunch and other traditional ten dishes. After dessert we were served

with a soup cooked on the bones of the duck we just consumed. The lunch was taken care ofby the Director General’s wife, his business card says he’s President of the Grand Theater. We gave our thanks, smiled and moved on to have coffee atStarbucks.

This is the only international brand so far that was translated into Chinese. The hieroglyphs look exotic! The name alone stretches for two lines.

We had a tour of the historic and tourist city center. While we walked around we were amazed at the abundance of souvenirs carved of stone. Such delicate work!

I liked two tortoises, I haven’t added anything to my collection for a while, and I regret it because the tortoise symbol bears a special meaning. “8,000 yuan,” said the vendor, it makes almost 1,500 US dollars. China is an expensive country. You can buy tea for $100 per 100g, or you can get the same amount for $1,000. A pair of regular shoes costs $200 at the mall. I offered her 5,000 and asked her pass it on to the senior manager. At least it’s $800, not $1,500. “I’ll come back and buy it, if you’re OK with the price.” Of course, they were OK, but, as a true Ukrainian at heart, I immediately regretted not offering 3,000. We had dinner at the Galaxy Mall, I think that’s what it was called. The restaurants are good here, but they don’t get many customers. Be careful, Yura! China is a juicy tidbit, but you have enough trouble without it.

Text and photo by Yuriy Beloyvan Find more details about the trips and many other interesting stories on the author’s site www.beloyvan.ru

10 | persone

Vyshyvanka Couture Designer Oksana Karavanska creates embroidered shirts for the third millennium.

All fashion collections by Oksana Karavanska are recognizably Ukrainian, inspired by authentic Ukrainian history and its symbols. However her newest collection – Vyshyvanka Couture – is probably the most Ukrainian one in its character. What else is capable of expressing the essence of the Ukrainian nation but the embroidered shirt – the vyshyvanka?

Oksana Karavanska has been working on the collection Vyshyvanka Couture for several years. The designer and her assistants travelled all over Ukraine looking for colorful patterns and ideas. After they gathered authentic traditional shirts, towels, and skirts, Karavanska set about giving them a new life – she combined decades- or even centuries-old embroidery with the contemporary embroidery, new fabrics, creative designs, and modern hand-made items.

“I decided to revive the history of the ancient vyshyvanka, which was traditionally embroidered by hand,

often one of a kind,” tells Oksana Karavanska. “That shirt was passed down from mother to daughter. Such vyshyvanka was a family relic, even a family talisman. When you hold a hand-made artefact, you inevitably feel its special vibes.”

With Vyshyvanka Couture Oksana Karavanska created exclusive objects at the meeting point of times and traditions. Karavanska calls her models “vyshyvanka for the third millennium,” and she treats them as deluxe designer items. These are not simple shirts, but rather objects, which will develop their own history, like a treasure from grandma’s chest.

“After all, vyshyvanka is a must-have for all times,” adds the designer.

“From the outset, I was very clear about my goal: my creative work would be connected with the country where I live. I looked for inspiration only in what I could find in Ukraine,” says Oksana. “You cannot win over the world by recycling its old inventions – you need to show the world something it didn’t know before. When people buy my clothes and take them to Europe they are always asked where they bought them.”

The Vyshyvanka Couture collection

by Oksana Karavanska first premiered on the runway at the end of 2014 in

Chicago. Since then, the Ukrainian designer’s collection has kept winning over Ukraine and the world. This summer, the embroidery fashion-story was shown in Karavanska’s home town Lviv – as an exclusive fashion show at the 5th International Alfa Jazz Fest. The show was staged in a very special place: Andrey Sheptytskyi’s Metropolitan Gardens on the Saint George’s Hill. This unique monument of the 18th-century Rococo architecture and park design welcomed the local glitterati for the first time ever.

Vyshyvanka Couture by Oksana Karavanska is more than a brand.

This fashion trend, so organic to

Welcome to our happy team!

We are always happy to welcome young and energetic men and women eager to work hard and to become professionals at what they do. Every focused and enthusiastic employee will get an opportunity for career growth.

A unique feature of our HR strategy is to employ not only the experienced professionals, but also young people, which results in an effective team.

Our job openings: Administrator Cook Hostess Cashier Waiter Delivery operator Bartender Doorman We offer: convenient flexible shifts + free meals + social package + career growth + high corporate culture + competitive salary.

Requirements: nationals of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, aged 18 to 50. Enthusiasm to work, grow and improve.

Human resources department: Moskow, Aeroport metro station, 3 Chernyakhovskogo St. Phone: 8-926-904-41-54, 8-926-461-21-71 resume@tarasbulba.ru

Note! We are now hiring to work in Korchma “Taras Bulba” restaurants in Kyiv and New York.

persone | 11

Karavanska, is now growing into a symbol of Ukraine.

Of the Ukraine that is modern, successful, stylish, creative, and authentic.

“I have worked many years to make vyshyvanka a part of a Ukrainian woman’s look,

and later – of a European woman’s look,” reveals Oksana Karavanska. “And after all these events in Ukraine, vyshyvanka finally made it into both women’s and men’s style. There is a fashion for everything that’s Ukrainian. And this is so

e Cat and the Fox’, Children’s encyclopedia, a fairy tale ‘Th puzzles. Look for new issue as well as poems, riddles and crossword BULBA PRESS of the children’s magazine Tarasik by aurants in “Korchma Taras Bulba’ chain of rest

Your kids deserve the best childhood!

awesome! It is an expression of our identity in the world.”

Text: Halyna Huzyo Photo: Yevheniy Kravs and Oleksandr Shamov

12 | news from «korchma»

Music, crazy cocktails, dancing, and best buddies. Everybody has thrown a house party at least once in their lifetime. The kind of party, to which you only invite your closest friends who stay until dawn and party like it’s their last day on earth.

House Party:

Moscow’s New Clubbing Culture The Korchma “Taras Bulba” restaurant chain decided to throw its own House Party.

Not only did the restaurant in Piatnitskaya Street invite its most loyal patrons, but everyone who enjoys a good company and loves to party was welcome. The organizers tried to follow all the new fashionable trends.

Recently, our New York restaurant had its own House Party, now it was Moscow’s turn.

Guests started flowing in. Even the pouring rain in Moscow didn’t scare the party-goers away. Our specialty cocktails Cosmoshine, Bulba Ice and Kvass Whisky created especially for the party must have been a major baiter that played in our favor.

Our girls-band was playing songs that were groovy enough to make the guests sing along.

The public was also entertained by MCs. In their everyday lives, they work as Korchma employees, on special occasions they turn into performers!

In addition to songs, dances, delicious refreshments, and cocktails, the party organizers prepared for their guests lotteries, contests, and a skit performance of an adult fairy tale. The guests made no secret of their delight at the experience.

The success of the first House Party made us think about throwing some more. We are pretty much confident that our parties will be getting even more exciting in the future!

news from ÂŤkorchmaÂť| 13

The Tray Race: Move Faster and Keep Your Balance!

Our waiters are not just all smiles and compliments, they are also the fastest in the world! To prove it, the Korchma Taras Bulba waiting stuff took part in yet another annual Tray Race. This race has long become popular with the best restaurants in the world. In Moscow, the lead in this exotic sport undoubtedly belongs to us: because we can both run fast and keep our balance! Be assured that no customer of the Korchma will have to wait long for their order.

The winners received traditional medals, cups and monetary prizes, the most light-heeled competitors will get a chance to go on a climbing trip to Mount Elbrus!

The race standings: 400 m, men: 1. Sergey Tumanov 2. Artyom Datsiuk 3. Maksim Kvetsko 4. Sergey Konanenko 5. Rustam Gafurov 6. Andrey Tartachnyi 7. Andrey Savchenko 8. Viktor Tsyganov

400 m, women: 1. Albina Baul 2. Alena Khomenko 3. Liudmila Serediuk 4. Alyona Kashcheyeva 5. Olia Yatsishinets

3 km, men:

3 km, women:

1. Artyom Datsiuk 2. Andrey Maksim 3. Maksim Kvetsko 4. Ihor Kretov 5. Yevgeny Lepilov 6. Aleksandr Niyezov 7. Alisher Dzhamatov 8. Andrey Dubina 9. Denis Solov 10. Andrey Savchenko 11. Sergey Gorbunov 12. Andrey Dumitrazhku 13. Fyodor Musaev 14. Vladimir Churikov 15. Abu Khudaberdiev 16. Alik Ochildiev 17. Sakhibbek Rakhimkulov 18. Roman Beregulenko 19. Timur Mamasoliev 20. Anvar Latipov

1. Maryana Kapiltsiv 2. Elena Panfilova 3. Alyona Khomenko 4. Liudmila Serediuk 5. Arina Petrukhina 6. Nargiza Artykova 7. Viktoriya Borisova 8. Ayperi Tashmurzakz 9. Elia Tavkhitova 10. Tatyana Ivanenko

14 | news from «korchma»

Heading to Mount Elbrus.

Join us!

The Korchma “Taras Bulba” team has set another ambitious goal: to conquer a new summit. Together with a team of experienced mountain climbers, we plan to climb Mount Elbrus in September. We invite all friends of our restaurant chain to join us on this exciting trip.

All the necessary information about the climb is available from the restaurant’s management.

Remember that the view is always better from the top! Do you want to feel an adrenaline rush in your blood? The spot in our team is waiting for you!

World Cup from Korchma.

Let’s support our team together!

Korchma “Taras Bulba” is holding a football championship in August. It will bring together competing teams from sixteen Moscow restaurants. Come and support your favorite restaurant, cheer for the players and help them win!

Specific dates of the tournament will be available at our website or from the restaurant’s management.

«Taras Bulba» chain of restaurants we present a CD of Ukrainian classical music in modern arrangements from Bulba Press.

The exclusive new disc will be available for sale in our restaurants!

Find time in your life for our music!

menu | 15

We h ave o n l y f r es h a n d s a v o r y n ew s !

www.bulbanews.ru Bulba NEWS has its own website now

We offer only fresh and savory news!

Share the news in social networks, and leave your comments.

Send your news to: bulbanews.ru@gmail.com EVERYBODY READS US!

The newspaper office is open for cooperation! Call us at 8-968-665-12-07 or write to: bulbanews.ru@gmail.com

Hard to believe but it’s true!

We look forward to the opening of

” restaurant! yet another Korchma “Taras Bulba г.Москва, ул. Пятницкая 14

тел.: 8 (915) 222-15-18 (495) 953-7153, 951-3760

www.tarasbulba.ru

The largest children’s playroom in our chain!

книга-меню

‘Korchma Taras Bulba’ reveals its secrets!

Maryino, 163 Lublinskaya St.

We offer you a recipe book Not by the salo alone

Cremations on the banks of the sacred Bagmati river, “the Sadhu holy drug-addicts” and the bloody festival Gadhimai Mela, the holy Mount Kailash, hermit monks and the Tibetan void celebrated by Buddhism.

All this in Yuriy Beloyvan’s book Traveling to an Alternate Reality…

4 4 7 7 0 8 (495) 7

Ukrainian cuisine – made with love!

Restaurants’ location:

MOSCOW, Aviamotornaya metro station, 6 Krasnokazarmennaya St., (499) 763 5741

Avtozavodskaya metro station,

6 Velozavodskaya St., (499) 764 1532

Akademicheskaya metro station,

16/10 Profsoyuznaya St., (499) 125 0877

Alekseyavskaya metro station, 3 Bochkova St., (495) 616 6754

Airport metro station,

64 Leningradskiy Prospekt St., (499) 151 9011

Baumanskaya metro station,

23/41 Bakuninskaya St., 8 495 956 55 81

Borovitskaya metro station,

8 Mokhovaya St., 24-hour, 8 962 918 75 38, 8 985 644 85 44

Krasnye Vorota metro station,

47 Myasnitskaya St., (495) 607 1762

Leninskiy Prospekt metro station,

37 Leninskiy Prospect St., (495) 954 6466

Novokuznetskaya metro station, 14 Pyatnitskaya St., (495) 953 7153

Novye Cheryomushki metro station, Nametkina St., 13 г, (495) 331 4211

You can never forget an adventurous journey.

Unadventurous journeys are not worth writing about. The long-awaited new book

Smolenskaya metro station,

12 Smolenskiy Avenue. St., 24-hour, (499) 246 6902

Tsvetnoy Boulevard metro station,

13 Sadovaya-Samotechnaya St., 24-hour, (495) 694 0056

Chekhovskaya metro station,

Nepal/Tibet: A Journey into an Alternate Reality was released this December by BULBA PRESS. The book can be purchased at the bookstore Biblio Globus and in the restaurants of the Korchma Taras Bulba chain.

Available now!

30/7 Petrovka St., (495) 694 6082

Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station,

6 Borovskoye Road, (495) 980 2051

Vystavochnaya metro station, of 1905 year,

27 Shmitovskiy Passage, 24-hour, (499) 256-4660

The town of Odintsovo

122 Mozhayskoye Shosse 8 (925) 166-16-18

KIEV, “Teatralnaya”, “Zolotye Vorota”,“Kreschatik” metro station, 2-4/7 Pushkinskaya St.,+38 (044) 270-7248

Certificate of registration PI № FS 77 – 19940. Circulation is 5 000 copies.

357 West Broadway, NYork City, NY 10013 phone: (212) 510 75 10

Laskavo prosymo!