Zakarpattya Oblast & Carpathian Mts.

This past weekend some colleagues and I attended the Hutsul and Brinza (cheese) Festival in Rakhiv. Hutsul are a ethnic group of people living in the Carpathian Mts. and have traditionally been herders. They are known for their colourful traditional dress and making Brinza cheese. Brinza resembles Feta cheese & one of our client cooperatives will begin to produce it and distribute throughout Ukraine.
Yaremcha, Ivano-Frankivsk Region (southwestern Ukraine).
This is an restaurant built in the traditional Carpathian style.

These views are from the small town of Rakhiv in Zakarpattya Region. The town is located in southwestern Ukraine near the Romanian border.



Children in traditional Hutsul costumes.

Another pic from Yaremcha.

AK in Ukraine

I hope to do better about sharing pictures of Ukraine and surrounding regions this time around! As most of you know this is "Ukraine -Part 2" for me. I am excited to be back and working with Agricultural Marketing Project's main office in Kyiv. {If you want to check out our website you can do so at: www.lol.org.ua or find details about the project on Land O'Lakes website under "International Development".}

Kyiv is a very different city than L'viv (where I last lived): the language is different (mostly Russian), the archeticture is different, even people's attitude is different. L'viv is the unoffical capital of Western Ukraine and very nationalistic. Many people and organizations there played a large part in the demonstrations and "Orange Revolution" that took place in Ukraine late last fall/early winter. It was once a part of Poland and the Austral-Hungarian Empire and looks and feels more "European". Its much smaller and contains many old buildings as it was barely damamged in WWII.

Hopefully, I can show you L'viv, Kyiv and many other parts of Ukraine & the surrounding regions that I love so much!