Enlarge image
Bowl of Ukrainian Borscht: Endangered Enjoyment
Photo: SERGEY DOLZHENKO / EPA
The United Nations cultural organization Unesco has put the Ukrainian culture of cooking borscht on its list of endangered cultural heritage.
The Unesco World Heritage Committee said on Friday that Ukrainian borscht cooking had been placed on the list of intangible cultural heritage in urgent need of protection.
As justification, the World Heritage Committee referred to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and its “negative effects on tradition”.
The Ukrainian Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko reacted enthusiastically: "The victory in the borscht war is ours," he wrote in the online service Telegram.
Kyiv had called for it to be classified as an endangered cultural heritage, while Russia had vehemently opposed it.
After the decision, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova spoke of an example of Ukrainian "nationalism" and ridiculed the UNESCO decision.
Apparently everything is now being "Ukrainized," she wrote on Telegram.
"What's next?
Are pigs recognized as a Ukrainian national product?”
In Ukraine, the beetroot stew borscht is considered the national dish, but it is also widespread in Russia and other former Soviet republics as well as Poland.
The World Heritage Committee explained that the flight of many people caused by the war means that they can no longer grow the necessary ingredients, cook borscht and gather to eat borscht.
This "undermines the social and cultural well-being of the community."
Unesco emphasized that the Ukrainian version of borscht is an integral part of everyday life in the country.
The court is an "integral part of Ukrainian family and community life."
The restaurateur Ievgen Klopotenko, a well-known TV chef in Ukraine, launched an initiative in 2020 to have borscht recognized as an intangible cultural heritage of his home country.
In 2021, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture submitted a corresponding application - analogous to Korean kimchi or Neapolitan pizza.
One reason is said to have been a tweet from a Russian country account, in which borscht was described as "one of Russia's most famous and popular dishes".
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Klopotenko launched an action under the slogan "Make Borscht Not War".
The borsch is the second Ukrainian entry on the Unesco list of intangible cultural heritage in urgent need of protection.
The traditional Cossack songs from the Dnipropetrovsk region were recorded in 2016, but their continued existence was seen as endangered, mainly because of the aging population.
feb/AFP
