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Gastronomic Authenticity and the World of Embroidery: Transcarpathian Open KITCHEN by Anatoliy and Iryna Pasievych

A special project about a father and daughter who popularize Transcarpathia through cuisine and embroidery

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The latest video on Anatoliy Pasevych’s channel, where he prepares Polish grzaniec, was posted on December 22, 2021. Against the picturesque backdrop of elegant Transcarpathian folk houses and the stately Church of St. Michael the Archangel in the courtyard of the Uzhhorod skansen, Anatoliy recounts the origins of the Christmas hot drink, carefully guiding viewers through each step of the recipe. The charismatic chef, donning a traditional Transcarpathian kalap, adds local craft ingredients one by one — beer, honey, and dried fruits — into a cauldron swirling with fragrant steam, so vivid that the aroma seems to waft through the screen.

“I wish everyone a happy holiday season. Cook, eat, and stay well,” Anatoliy says as he concludes the video. Just two months later, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine begins, and Anatoliy volunteers for the army, quickly deploying to the front lines with the 68th Battalion, the Transcarpathian Sharkani.

Once a professional soldier who shared his passion for Transcarpathia through his Open KITCHEN project, Anatoliy used to be a coursemate of Commander-in-Chief General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi. He is also a retired officer, a culinary entertainer, a guide, and a father who, despite not being a native of the region, instilled a deep love for Transcarpathia, its history, and traditions in his daughter Iryna.

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Анатолій Пасєвич

From Army Life to Gastronomic Storytelling: The Open KITCHEN

Anatoliy Pasievych hails from the Cherkasy region but made Transcarpathia his home in 1997 after graduating from the Odesa Military Institute of Land Forces. It was here that he started a family, and his daughter was born.

After retiring from the military, he worked as a district police officer in Uzhhorod. In 2018, he became one of the first participants in the Ukraine-Norway program, aimed at retraining and socially adapting military personnel and their families, launched by Major Serhiy Kuzniev, a veteran of the ATO.

In November 2023, Major Kuzniev tragically died in a missile attack on a unit of the 128th Mountain Infantry Brigade in Zaporizhzhia region during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Anatoliy, having endured contusions, a long hospital stay, and his return from the front lines, is now once again trying to transition back to civilian life.

Back in 2018, the first cadets of the Ukraine-Norway project were gaining new skills and considering how to apply them.

“At that time, the catering industry in Zakarpattia region was only beginning to grow. I’ve always loved cooking, especially for my girls — my wife and daughter. I realized I could turn this passion into a business, with a focus on catering. But I needed to find unique solutions and figure out what exclusive experiences I could offer to tourists,” Anatoliy recalls.

This is how after a few months of reflection and development his Open KITCHEN project was born. The concept was simple yet unique: a Hutsul in traditional folk attire preparing authentic Transcarpathian dishes over an open fire, weaving in stories of the region’s history with each recipe. The Hutsul costume was carefully designed, with every element crafted to order based on historical clothing samples from various parts of Transcarpathia. Likewise, the cooking utensils — from knives and hatchets to wooden spoons and bowls — were custom-made, paying homage to local traditions.

The centerpiece of Anatoliy Pasievych’s outfit during the Open KITCHEN workshops is the kalap (A men’s hat), a Transcarpathian men’s hat that originally came from Volovets district. The symbol of the kalap is also placed on the project logo, next to the mountains and the sun. Anatoliy Pasievych is recognized by such hat during his tours, which in 2021, during the short-lived renaissance of Transcarpathian tourism between quarantine and full-scale war, he could conduct as many as three a day.  

When asked why the kalap is decorated with seashells, as Transcarpathia is located nowhere near the sea, Anatoliy tells tourists about the brave bokorashi: Carpathian rafters who floated timber down the Tisa, Danube, and all the way to the Black Sea. Upon reaching their destination, bokorashi would return home with a seashell as proof of a successful route. One rafting trip meant one shell on a necklace. And the whole necklace is a testament to the skill and courage of the rafters, which turned them into valued and respected people. 

Bohrach by Anatoliy

What dish do tourists first associate Transcarpathia with? That’s right – it is bohrach. Naturally, Anatoliy Pasievych cooked this dish on his first trip on an open fire in a cauldron – for 60 people all at once. 

In 2019, several dozen gifted children from all over Ukraine came to the Perechyn community as part of the Power of the Village project. They were the first to listen to fascinating stories and taste authentic bohrach from a Transcarpathian Hutsul. The Open KITCHEN culinary entertainment tour was so successful that word of mouth did the trick in no time. 

“I was worried about how it would go, whether anyone would be interested. Not being a native of the region, but already having it in my heart, I had to study the history of Transcarpathia thoroughly. At the same time, I had to find my way into a field where other eminent professionals were already working. But when you have the right passion and thirst, when you do your job well, trust is built in you. Just for example: almost all of the 1000 business cards made to promote the Open KITCHEN project remained unused,” Anatoliy Pasievych recalls. 

Anatoliy’s bohrach has become perhaps the most popular dish ordered by tourists for cooking on outings over time. Once he had to cook it for 130 tourists at once near Lake Synevyr. Since it is forbidden to have open fires in the national park and to burn even dry dead branches, they brought firewood from Uzhhorod and made the bonfire on specially adapted structures. His wife and daughter helped him prepare meat and vegetables for bohrach for so many people until late at night.

In the winter of 2021, Anatoliy Pasievych was recognized as the best bohrachvar (A chef or cook specializing in bohrach preparation)  at a thematic open competition where renowned chefs competed in cooking the dish. 

When he was already in the army, he tried to cook bohrach for his brothers-in-arms. Initially, he resisted attempts to persuade him: the enemy was shelling non-stop, and the dish required a lot of time and effort. But when his brothers-in-arms “procured” all the necessary ingredients and approached him again, he couldn’t refuse. That was the first and last time Anatoliy cooked bohrach at the front: “It was almost done when, all of a sudden, there was another hit nearby. Everything was covered in dirt—beams, boards—everything was overturned and torn up. The guys and I are coughing up some air, and I say: “Well, did y’all enjoy your meal? Here’s your bohrach!”

Tasting a Medieval Dish Made of Giblets

But, as they say, it is not all about bohrach. Anatoliy Pasievych notes that Transcarpathia has been part of 22 countries and state formations making its culinary heritage rich and offering plenty of room for culinary exploration. He lists some of the dishes he’s prepared for tourists during his masterclasses: banosh, Székely goulash, tokan, Christmas dziama, lecho, Halászlé fish soup, bigos, and Rakoczi levesh, a dish served to guests at the wedding of Ilona Zrinyi and Imre Tekeli in Mukachevo Castle.

However, there were also lesser-known culinary experiments, such as the preparation of tsybulianka in the Nevytske Castle, a dish made of fried onions that was once part of the Roman legionnaires’ rations. 

Another of Anatoliy’s bold experiments was the recreation of medieval dishes once consumed by the military garrison at Mukachevo Castle between the 14th and 16th centuries.

“We initiated this project thanks to Sashko Shershun*. We found records in chronicles and church documents listing the ingredients for these dishes. They prepared eintopf, a type of soup, and loci, a roasted meat dish served to the garrison officers. They also recreated a dish that was used to feed prisoners in the castle during the Middle Ages: giblets with rotten cabbage and carrots. The entire process was filmed for a presentation video, and now it is part of the Mukachevo History Museum’s exhibitions,” says Anatoliy Pasievych.

*Oleksandr Shershun is an advisor to the mayor of Mukachevo on tourism, co-founder of the Silver Tatosh festival, and currently a soldier in the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Transcarpathian Zaspulnytsia*: A Step into the Embroidered World

Every great chef needs a sous chef, and Anatoliy’s assistant is his daughter, Iryna. Currently studying to become a social worker at Uzhhorod National University, Iryna also volunteers with the Red Cross and recreates ancient embroidery patterns from authentic Transcarpathian designs.

Her first shirt was created while studying at the Kosytsia studio of traditional Transcarpathian embroidery for the Open KITCHEN project. She chose a challenging project: a zaspulnytsia shirt with cutouts, modeled after ancient embroidery from the Khust district.

She recalls how difficult and time-consuming it was to make her first dovhania* shirt. Without much experience, the threads would tangle, and the seams would go wrong, forcing her to cut the pattern open: “It was during quarantine when everything was closed. I’d wake up in the morning and sit down to embroider, have lunch and embroider, have dinner and embroider again. Sometimes, I’d cry, fighting the urge to tear it all apart. Then I realized I just needed to take breaks. Whenever I started getting nervous, I’d put the embroidery aside and switch to something else.”

*An embroidered shirt with particularly lavishly embroidered sleeves worn by women who lived in the valley of the Tereblya and Rika rivers in Transcarpathia

* A floor-length shirt made of home-woven hemp or linen cloth

 

Despite the challenges, her interest in embroidery only grew stronger after completing the first shirt. She wanted to try new patterns and colors. Since then, she has made a second and third shirt, and two more men’s shirts by request. Now, working on her fourth shirt, Iryna already knows exactly how the next one is going to look, where she is going to buy the threads, and what fabric she is going to use.

Since she took up embroidery, Iryna’s original Transcarpathian shirts have become essential for holidays and her “work” clothes during the Open KITCHEN tours. Still, she marvels at how women in the past managed their household chores in these folk costumes. Despite being made from natural linen or hemp, they make you hot, restrict movement, and you get dirty easily when cooking. Washing them—especially after exposure to paprika, tomato, fat, or oil—requires extra care to avoid damaging the delicate embroidery, making it a tricky task every time.

An Ancient Transcarpathian Shirt in Kropyvnytskyi

During her early years at university, Iryna set out to find old examples of folk embroidery among her coursemates. She was convinced that some of them would have preserved at least some scraps of such items in their grandmother’s old chests. However, after a long search, she managed to find only one Hutsul men’s shirt from Rakhiv district.

Iryna was even more surprised when she accidentally discovered an authentic old Transcarpathian embroidered shirt in a private museum in Kropyvnytskyi.

“My colleagues and I were on a business trip, and while walking around the city, we visited a museum run by a group of women in Kropyvnytskyi. They collect old clothes and also sew replicas based on traditional patterns: keptars*, skirts, rushnyks*. In one of the halls, I saw a familiar sight—richly embroidered sleeves and a distinctive, neat diamond pattern on the chest… It was a Transcarpathian zaspulnytsia from the Khust district! It turned out that a woman from Zakarpattia region had moved to Kropyvnytskyi long ago and brought this shirt with her,” Iryna recalls, sharing the story she heard from the museum staff.

She tried to convince the museum staff to sell the shirt so she could bring this authentic piece of traditional Transcarpathian embroidery back to its homeland. However, she was unsuccessful: “Let there be a memory of Transcarpathia in Kropyvnytskyi,” was their response, and her request was denied.

*Keptar is a traditional Ukrainian woolen garment, often resembling a vest, typically worn by men.

*Rushnyk is a traditional Ukrainian embroidered cloth that holds significant cultural and symbolic meaning in Ukraine. Made from linen or cotton, it is often decorated with intricate embroidery featuring various patterns and motifs, which can vary by region.

The Most Precious Person to You is Yourself

Iryna took that memorable trip to Kropyvnytskyi after she had already become a Red Cross instructor in providing first psychological aid. She has been volunteering for several years, and after finishing her training, she herself became a trainer for the organization.

Iryna joined the city’s Red Cross in December 2021, as a second-year student, seeking an internship in the social sector and an opportunity to join the volunteer movement. Just two months later, she found herself practicing at a breakneck pace as the full-scale war began.

Alongside other Red Cross volunteers, Iryna distributed humanitarian aid and provided first aid to people arriving in the city day after day from the outset of the invasion. Later, she started working at shelters for IDPs, focusing on helping children.

“We organized activities for children to help reduce their stress and build resilience. We drew with them so they could express their emotions and release negativity, and we played games. In the early months of the war, the children always asked for black crayons to color with, and they refused to use any other colors. But one exercise that always sparked enthusiasm was ‘Mirror in a Box.’ We’d place a mirror inside a box and let the child open it, telling them, ‘Inside the box is a photo of someone very important to us—and to you. This person is bright, interesting, beautiful, funny, and wonderful.’ You should have seen the children’s eyes light up when they opened the box and saw themselves in the mirror. They realized it was them—bright, interesting, beautiful, cheerful, and wonderful,” Iryna says with a warm smile.

Festival field kitchen at war

“The war cut off literally everything we had nurtured, worked hard for, and dreamed of. In terms of tourist experiences and events, the year 2022 was planned out day by day: something was supposed to happen every day, this year was supposed to be a powerful and good shake-up for the tourism industry,” Anatoliy Pasievych recalls February, 2022. ”Instead, we had to go to the guys from the territorial defense with the props we had already collected for the new festival.

The festival Anatoliy mentioned was scheduled for the fall of 2022. He developed its concept together with UzhNU professor and tourism expert Fedir Shandor, who is currently serving in the 68th Battalion of the Special Forces. One of the highlights of the festival is the field kitchen, featuring recreations of dishes from the World War I era. But by an evil irony, the 50-liter cauldrons used to prepare festival’s dishes served to cook real war food.

In these cauldrons, Anatoliy cooked hot dishes first for the soldiers who came for reinforcement and kept watch at checkpoints. A little later, he went to the permanent location of the territorial defense forces. In the chaos of the first days of the war, the unit did not care about hot meals: bags of potatoes, onions, and carrots were left untouched while volunteers were content with bread and bacon or canned food between intense training sessions. Anatoliy set up a field kitchen on the unit’s grounds, originally intended for an unfulfilled festival, and managed it until the battalion was deployed to the east in the spring. In March, he joined his unit at the front line, not as a cook, but as a combat officer.

“When I saw that I had to cook for half a thousand soldiers, I realized the battalion was truly being formed. I’m a professional military officer, and defending the country is my duty. I still remember the surprise on the guys’ faces when I showed up in uniform for the first time—they were used to seeing me in the kitchen. Then suddenly, at the line-up, I was the one saying, ‘Dress right! Attention!’” recalls Anatoliy Pasevych.

If you are not in the army, you work for the army

He recalls how valuable his military training proved to be at the front, especially since most of the volunteers were former civilians. He reminisces about encountering his former classmates from the military institute in various units, now holding high ranks and titles. He describes the experience of traveling to the frontline day after day amid constant shelling to carry out the tasks assigned by headquarters. He also received calls from tourists in Uzhhorod asking for a masterclass in cooking Transcarpathian dishes while he was on the front line: “I told them, ‘No problem: come here to me, I’ll send you the location, and we’ll organize everything.’ However, they didn’t appreciate the joke and were offended.”

In 2023, due to a significant decline in his health, Anatoliy Pasievych returned home. He spent six months in the hospital, and as he notes, the effects of his contusions are still apparent today. After returning to civilian life, he began volunteering: alongside his friends, he collects aid for his fellow soldiers, organizes fundraisers, purchases military equipment, gathers supplies from abroad, and delivers them to the front lines.

The Open KITCHEN project is currently on hold, as Anatoliy lacks the emotional strength to conduct culinary entertainment events. However, he recently made an exception at the request of friends who were organizing a rehabilitation event for wounded soldiers in Skansen. He cooked bohrach outdoors for the defenders, just as he did before the great war.

“We were supposed to live, create, move forward, and develop both ourselves and the region. Sometimes, I find myself wondering: will it ever happen again? And I answer myself—yes, it will. Maybe not quickly, not overnight, and not on the scale we desire, but it will happen. Each of us is now fulfilling our own role: if you are not in the army, you work for the army, and together we will prevail,” Anatoliy Pasievych concludes.

Tetiana Klym-Kashuba, Varosh

Photo: Natalia Pavlyk

This material has been prepared within the framework of the Dutch-Slovak-Ukrainian project ‘Strengthening the Rule of Law at the Local/Regional Level in Ukraine: The Case of Zakarpattia Region’, which is implemented with the support of the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands under the MATRA program, a leading Dutch initiative for social transformation support.

 

Matra+ices+fjiac+ti Varosh

The project is being implemented by the Institute for Central European Strategy (ICES) in collaboration with the Dutch organization Foundation of Justice, Integrity and Anti-Corruption (FJIAC) and Transparency International Slovensko (TI SK), in partnership with the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration and the Regional Council.

Important: The content of this material does not reflect the official position or opinions of the project’s implementers or donors. The content of the publications is the sole responsibility of Varosh.

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