Learn Ukraine before you go

10 phrases to learn

In Ukrainian. Capital letters show the stressed part. Tap the heart to practise a phrase later.

At the table

• Before eating, people wish each other 'Smachnoho!' (enjoy your meal).
• When glasses are raised, a common Ukrainian toast is 'Budmo!', meaning 'let us be', used like 'cheers'.
• Borscht is seen as an expression of hospitality that brings people of all ages together at the table, and it is served with bread or garlic buns.
• The Christmas Eve supper has twelve meatless dishes, without meat, eggs or milk, and begins with kutia.
• At the Christmas Eve supper, the head of the family traditionally takes the first spoonful of kutia.

Local tips

Dishes to try

• Borscht (борщ (borshch)): A sour soup of meat or bone stock with beetroot, which gives it its deep red colour, and cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes and tomatoes. It is served hot with a spoonful of sour cream and bread or garlic buns.
• Varenyky (вареники): Half-moon dumplings of thin, soft dough filled with mashed potato, cabbage, curd cheese, meat or, in summer, sour cherries. They are boiled and served with fried onions and sour cream, or with sugar and sour cream when the filling is fruit.
• Deruny (potato pancakes) (деруни): Crisp pancakes of grated raw potato and onion, fried in oil and served hot with sour cream.
• Syrnyky (curd cheese pancakes) (сирники): Small, thick pancakes of soft curd cheese mixed with egg, a little flour and sugar, fried golden in butter or oil. They are eaten for breakfast or dessert with sour cream, jam or honey.
• Holubtsi (cabbage rolls) (голубці): Cabbage leaves rolled around a filling of rice or millet, often mixed with minced meat, then baked or stewed with onions, tomato and sour cream.
• Pampushky (пампушки): Small, soft yeast buns. Savoury pampushky are seasoned with a garlic sauce and served with red borscht. Sweet ones are filled with fruit, jam or poppy seeds.
• Salo (сало): Salt-cured pork fat, sometimes with a thin layer of meat and flavoured with garlic or paprika. It is cut in thin slices and eaten on dark bread with onion, garlic or mustard.
• Chicken Kyiv (котлета по-київськи (kotleta po-kyivsky)): A chicken breast pounded thin, rolled around cold butter and herbs, coated in egg and breadcrumbs and fried or baked. When it is cut, the melted butter runs out.

Cities to see

• Kyiv (capital): Saint Sophia Cathedral and the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Its very deep metro stations, The Dnipro river and its hills.
• Kharkiv: The Derzhprom building on Freedom Square, Its universities, Engineering and industry.
• Odesa: The Potemkin Stairs, Its opera house and grand boulevards, The Black Sea and its port.
• Dnipro: Heavy industry and space technology, Its past as a closed Soviet city, The Dnipro river, which gives it its name.
• Lviv: Market Square and the old town, Coffeehouses from Austrian times, The Lviv Opera House.
• Vinnytsia: The Southern Bug river, A regional centre of Podillia, Its reputation as one of the most comfortable Ukrainian cities to live in.

Landmarks and the city map are on the Ukraine trip