Conversations over borshch. Stories of Ukrainian Women in Sweden

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, about 6.2 million Ukrainians have been forced to leave Ukraine. Many of them left in a rush, often without a set plan or guarantees on the other side of the border. After the horrors they experienced, the long and difficult trip and the challenges of adjusting to a completely new environment were daunting.

Nataliia Fadieieva is a program manager from Kyiv. At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, she was studying towards a Master’s degree in Sustainable Management at Uppsala University in Sweden. She knew that her thesis would be connected to Ukraine, but the inspiration for her research came from an unexpected source. At a party she organised, her friends and classmates Jesse Luteyn (from the Netherlands) and Bjorn Opdenberg (from Germany) tried borshch for the first time. Afterwards, they cooked together a few more times and realised that the cooking process was an effective way to find common ground and get to know each other better. The idea to contact women who had fled Ukraine and moved to the island of Gotland in Sweden emerged after meeting a Ukrainian woman at a local charity screening of Ukrainian film New Jerusalem in support of UNITED24.

Nataliia, Jesse, and Bjorn decided to conduct their research while the Ukrainian refugee women were preparing borshch. Titled “Borshch Diaries: Exploring Ukrainian Women’s Accounts of Belonging on Gotland”, the thesis shares the experiences of Ukrainian women who were forced to evacuate to Sweden due to the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war.

Borshch is part of Ukraine’s intangible cultural heritage that is present in the everyday lives of virtually all Ukrainians. It contributes to forming their individual and collective identities. The relaxed atmosphere that accompanies borshch-making encouraged the participants to share what was on their minds.

“We are formed by the routine of borshch”

The researchers held borshch talks six times during the spring of 2023, each with a different participant. Nataliia, Jesse, and Bjorn inquired about their participants’ experiences of living in the full-scale war, specifically about their evacuations and their emotions during different phases.

The research method involved the researchers taking part in preparing the meals. Nataliia recalls that the scent of garlic that accompanies borshch-making brought back her own memories of her grandmother. Each meeting with a participant caused a wave of emotions and homesickness for Ukraine.

“I was riding an emotional roller-coaster: one moment I would have tears of joy for the delicious food and amazing time we were having, the next moment I was crying from what the participants were sharing. It felt like home, very cosy, because I had not been in Ukraine for quite some time and I missed it. It seemed like my experiences were distinct and I was the only one carrying these emotions. But [the participants] showed me that it wasn’t only happening with me.”

Creating an atmosphere of safety and trust was crucial for the conversations’ success. This is why Nataliia and her colleagues used an unconventional research method called “cooking as inquiry”. They were inspired by Kai-Sean Lee, who investigated cooking as a proverbial guide to a person’s memories, and Ami Rokach, a Canadian researcher who used the same method and wrote about the importance of cooking for a person’s sense of belonging. Rokach notes that cooking traditional meals helps evoke memories and a sense of home and family.

Personal memories like these are closely tied to collective memory, which helps people stay connected even when apart, creates a sense of togetherness, and is often key to building dialogue. This is why Nataliia and her colleagues chose borshch for this research work: it is traditional but also a basic everyday food for Ukrainians. Borshch is a Ukrainian ethnocultural phenomenon that is persistently protected and researched by Ukrainian scientists and cooks. (Unsurprisingly, Russia has tried to appropriate the dish numerous times.) Another factor in the group’s choice was the time it takes to prepare borshch — long enough for a meaningful conversation. Nataliia adds:

“We have found plenty of proof that this method [cooking as inquiry] works well. Lisa Heldke states that cooking was often dismissed due to its reputation for being a ‘woman’s job” that is not worth researching. The majority of men, who held the dominant voices in society for a long time, paid no attention to cooking.”

Nataliia also consulted some ethnographers’ works before starting her research. Swedish scientist Gurbet Peker inspired her and her colleagues to choose ethnography as a research method, Ukrainian researcher Olena Zhukova led them to better understand the context of intangible cultural heritage, and doctor of historical sciences in ethnology Olena Shcherban provided suggestions for proper emphasis on cultural context.

Nataliia points out that mundane tasks like cooking borshch affect who we are:

“What we eat, what we do on a daily basis, these things make up our days and shape our personalities. So the mundane of making borshch, of cooking a meal, is also what shapes us.”

In her opinion, borshch is one of the reasons why Ukrainians feel a sense of commonality with one another. It testifies to the permanence of Ukrainian traditions while bringing back personal memories and experiences. That is exactly how it is for Nataliia:

“My grandma used to make borshch for us. I have a link with a larger cultural layer through borshch. When we met with these Ukrainian women, we had this connection straight away. We felt a sense of belonging to Ukrainians as a group.”

“I was only six when I decided I had to learn to make borshch”

One of the research participants was 15-year old Yana, who moved to Sweden with her mom, Nataliia Kravets. The teenager remembers preparing and putting together a go-bag before the full-scale invasion. She recalls falling asleep quickly due to stress, while her mom couldn’t sleep at all.

“We were in deep stress,” recalls Yana’s mom about the first days of the full-scale war. “We were exhausted and my husband suggested going to a village to rest a little. On 27 February, I woke up in the morning, walked outside and was shocked — explosions were everywhere. I heard small arms fired. I called my husband and said, ‘They’re shooting outside. Our bridges were bombed to prevent them from moving into Kyiv.’ He replied: ‘Pack your bags. I’m bringing money, you will go somewhere else.’”

A 9-day trip filled with obstacles awaited them. After crossing the Ukrainian border, they decided to go to Sweden. Yana already spoke Swedish well because she was planning to study at a university there. She quickly became an interpreter between Ukrainians and Swedes.

Nataliia, the researcher, and her colleagues visited Yana and her mom at a student residence, where most refugees from Ukraine on Gotland are currently living. They both agree that this dorm kitchen has become a space that unites all of them. When they come together to cook, these Ukrainians from many different regions tell unique and often difficult stories from their lives, share homesickness, and support one another. Yana’s mom also points out that while cooking together, especially borshch, all of the regional differences are brought to light.

Yana has chosen a traditional borshch recipe that connects her to her family, specifically her grandmother, who replaced meat with mushrooms and tomatoes with currants. Yana’s mom thinks that this recipe reflects the region of Ukraine where they lived. Yana adds:

“I was only six when I decided that I had to learn to make borshch. Because it didn’t sit right with me that everyone cooked it and I didn’t even know how to. That’s when I started secretly writing down the recipe.”

While Yana leisurely washed and cut the ingredients, her mom assisted and continued to share memories of life in Ukraine before the full-scale war and how they built their life here in Sweden.

She points out that she gives most of her time and effort to FöräldrarSOS (ParentsSOS), a charitable organisation with a mission to improve education quality and accessibility for Ukrainian children. Nataliia and Yana founded this organisation together with two other Ukrainian women who were forced to move to Sweden at the beginning of the full-scale war: Lesia Stepanenko from Kyiv and Yuliia Hurinenko from Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. They established partnerships with several communities in Ukraine to provide Ukrainian children with high-quality online education. The first project that Nataliia and her colleagues brought to life through FöräldrarSOS was a fundraiser for orphans from Ukraine.

Yana teaches Ukrainian to Swedes and tells them about her home country to help them understand that Ukraine is not Russia and the Ukrainian language is not the same as Russian. She also encourages her Ukrainian peers who evacuated to Sweden to speak Ukrainian. Nataliia and Yana share that local Ukrainians do their best to help and support one another.

“Borshch is a dish of many possibilities”

Another research participant is Olena Popelnytska, who made borshch in Bjorn’s kitchen. This is the second time she was forced to leave her home. Olena and her parents evacuated Prypiat 37 years ago due to the Chornobyl nuclear power plant tragedy, and this time she and her children (12 and 17 years old) fled to escape the full-scale war.

When her family had to leave Ukraine for the first time, solidarity with other Ukrainians gave them strength. Some of them also found solace in their love for sewing. Today, Olena accepts support and supports other Ukrainians in return. She started sewing again and decorates her space to make it feel cosier and more like home as opposed to something temporary. She explains:

“It’s exhausting mentally to be in a constant state of temporariness or uncertainty. “This is why there is a need to have something of your own; to settle and lower this tension. I bought posters and art to have something of my own on someone else’s wall. Not to simply declare something or anchor myself, but to have something that feels like mine and reflects me.”

While continuing to prepare borshch, Olena also shared that as of recently, a new poster is hanging above her bed. It’s an image of the singer P!nk with the words “I’m not dead”. Olena purchased it on a whim after seeing it in a bathroom in a Red Cross building. She says that it was a very precise reflection of her inner state. Another valuable thing she owns is a coffee table she also purchased there.

Olena shares that at the beginning of the full-scale war, when she and her children were evacuating from Kyiv, they only took necessities such as documents and clothes. At the first opportunity, she asked someone to bring her work laptop and a 100-year-old embroidered shirt. She had bought the shirt for her grandmother Eva’s 90th birthday celebration, where her whole family dressed in traditional Ukrainian clothing. Another valuable item that reminds Olena of her family is an amber necklace that her father made for her.

When the researchers ask Olena about her kitchen traditions, she says that she supports Ukrainian customs, but she always prepares borshch intuitively.:

“Borshch is a dish of many possibilities.”

She adds that the previous generation in her family cooked borshch in an old-style Ukrainian oven, just like all their other meals. That was their custom for many years until Olena, her parents, and her grandparents were evacuated from the Chornobyl zone. They were relocated to houses that did not have this type of oven and ended up losing their traditional way of cooking.

“Life turned out in such a way that it’s like I’m repeating the history that happened to my parents, to my mom. I was six years old when the Chornobyl disaster happened. I remember those events quite well.”

She reflects that she now understands what it was like for her mom in 1986 when she was forced to evacuate with her two children, only bringing the necessities because the government said it would “only be for two or three days”. Olena was in very similar circumstances at the beginning of the full-scale invasion: packing a small suitcase for three days and leaving for the unknown with her two children.

“Prypiat is a personal story, a special one. I remember the location of our building very well, our address, and how our apartment looked. I hadn’t been there for 30 years when I decided to visit it as an adult. It was only 30 years after the disaster that I was able to visit Prypiat with a tour from Kyiv and see my apartment, the school I went to, and my classroom.”

During that visit, Olena was surprised to find her favourite baby doll in her parents’ bedroom. It looked completely new, just a little dusty. Olena took the toy and it has travelled with her ever since. She says it is a symbol of herself as a child. This baby doll currently sits on her bedside table in Gotland as a little piece of her childhood.

“I think that our attachments, our traditions, are engraved into our memory during childhood in the moments when we feel good and safe. When you’re having a good time on vacation and you’re not busy.”

Olena shared one such memory with the researchers. As a child she often visited her family home in the village of Staryi Pereyizd in Polissia. The village doesn’t exist anymore — its residents were evacuated due to radioactive pollution from the Chornobyl disaster. It is now a closed-off area that is only opened during Easter celebrations to let people visit the cemetery. Olena thinks that this tragedy, along with many others in Ukrainian history, is one reason why Ukrainians do not remember their ancestors — they are simply unable to visit cemeteries and the places where they were born.

“In Gotland, I think, and in the rest of Sweden, there are plenty of families and houses with multiple generations. There’s a house here that belonged to the same family for eight generations. I was so deeply impressed by that. Our nation has been so broken by history! There’s barely anyone who has that because our history is so difficult […] that we don’t have such connections, such houses, and such stories that would include generations of memories. It’s very painful to realise this.”

Olena is convinced that greater unity and support for one another will positively impact Ukrainians’ future. For example, she was able to unite the Ukrainians of Gotland around a small sewing workshop using her skills as a professional designer. Before opening her own interior design business in Ukraine, Olena completed a year of sewing school at a college. She did not consider it anything serious or particularly useful for the future at the time, but when she arrived in Visby (the biggest city and administrative centre of Gotland, located on the seashore), she wanted to take care of her children and be financially independent.

Olena set up a sewing workshop in her room while living with a Swedish family and shared an ad on the island. In the ad she briefly introduced herself and included a saying: “If you want to help someone, give them a fishing rod, not a fish. I want to support myself while helping you in any way I can.” She offered clothes making and repair services and asked if anyone could share materials and a sewing machine.

The story and work of Olena’s small sewing business resonated with local Swedes. Now she has regular customers, and she even expanded the business with the help of some Ukrainian friends. They presented the sewing studio as a business idea for the Gotland community through the Google Digital Academy program founded for Ukrainian women. Olena has already released a limited line of kid’s clothes for Middle Ages Week, a celebration on Gotland where everyone wears medieval-style clothing.

“Borshch is a reminder of home”

Lesia Stepanenko is another research participant who made borshch at the student residence. She evacuated from Kyiv with her 10-year old son at the beginning of March 2022. Lesia remembers that there was not a single seat available at the train station due to the amount of people there. There were not enough seats on the trains either. They spent the night at the train station and were able to board a train the next morning.

After arriving in Poland, a Polish journalist who they had not met before helped them travel to Sweden. The road was long with loud noises and lots of commotion. Lesia remembers how her son would cling to her because he was scared of getting lost in the crowd and to help keep her calm.

“He has grey hairs now. It’s scary, terrible really. My body and mind disconnected. It’s easier to think less during stress. There’s a goal and you’re making your way to it. For three months I didn’t cry, I walked around like a zombie.”

The mandatory communal-style living at the dorm on Gotland became a challenge for Lesia. Even though she was able to set up their tight space and make it more cosy over time, she still says that a living arrangement with so many people around has its own set of challenges. But it also provides support because sometimes these Ukrainian women gather in the kitchen to cook or drink tea together.

While cooking with the researchers, hundreds of kilometres away from home, Lesia shares that her borshch turns out a little different every time. However, she always uses a basic recipe that her mom taught her. The main ingredients are beets, cabbage, potatoes, and meat. Sometimes she adds ketchup in addition to tomato sauce; other times she’ll also add paprika and bell peppers. Lesia always adds some sugar because she likes dishes with a sweet flavour.

“For me, borshch is a reminder of home, of something heartwarming. We used to have borshch every 2 to 3 weeks. Among Ukrainians, it’s customary to have borshch or some other soup as the first course. It’s also a nice reminder of my mom.”

Lesia studied to be a women’s clothing designer and dressmaker. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, she used to sew men’s accessories from home. In Sweden she joined Olena’s sewing studio initiative and now creates items with other Ukrainians from time to time.

In order to integrate into the local community and learn the language more easily, Lesia created an account in an online dating app. She quickly became friends with a man who is now her fiance. She used Google Translate to communicate with him for about a month, and three months later she proposed
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“After everything I’ve been through, I understand that I can lose everything. All of my fears and shyness melted away. I live for today. [My now-fiance] was shocked.”

Lesia adds that her ancestors also lived through the horrors of war, some of them even through the Holodomor famine-genocide of 1932-1933. Her grandfathers died very early, so the stories of those times were passed on by her grandmothers. One of them was born in 1911, the other in 1919.

“My grandmother told me how they lived through the Holodomor in 1933. At that time, it was prohibited to even have trees on your property in Ukraine. You had to pay for them, and if you didn’t pay, they would come in and cut them down. People ate tree bark, and in the summer — boiled grass. They would go out into the fields to look for stalks of wheat, even though it was strictly prohibited. If they were caught, they could go to jail for embezzlement.”

“Starvation and war are the scariest things,” Lesia’s grandmother Paraskevia would tell her. This is what Lesia repeats now, over and over.

After all the hardships Lesia’s family has been through, they always make sure to have enough food in the pantry, money, and other necessities. Even here, on Gotland, Lesia stocks up on food. Since living in Sweden, she has noticed some other features of Ukrainians that make them stand out.

“We [Ukrainians] are free, joyful, and will laugh through tears in any situation. We are fast and hardworking. For them (Swedes — ed.) it’s very strange when Ukrainians finish the amount of work that could take 2-3 days in a few hours. This caused a situation in Stockholm where any Ukrainians who knew English would be hired even without knowing Swedish. But with time the hiring slowed down because Ukrainians worked much faster than Swedes.”

In her free time, Lesia reads. She says that she recently checked out Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar from a local library but was unable to enjoy it after realising it was a translation from Russian. Reading Ukrainian literature reminds her of home:

“Ukraine is home. Big, beautiful, warm…the best home.”

After finalising their research work, Nataliia, Jesse, and Bjorn prepared a short film. The participants came to the thesis presentation and congratulated the researchers, treating them to honey cake, thanking them, and crying together.

While analysing the results of their research, Nataliia and her colleagues noticed a common trait among the Ukrainian women who participated: they are afraid of the risks that come with relocation and how it will affect their children. However, they also noticed the women’s assertiveness. They are willing to fight for their rights, create new friendships, and learn new languages, and they carry a sense of personal responsibility to tell foreigners about Ukraine. Nataliia emphasises that their research did not aim to find final answers, but sought to dive deeper into the experiences of Ukrainian women who moved to Gotland due to the full-scale invasion. She says that the stories of the six participants who spoke with them while making borshch expose the terrible reality of the war that Russia started in Ukraine.

Nataliia hopes to see their research raise awareness of the full-scale war in Ukraine among Swedes on Gotland and inspire them to be even more supportive towards Ukrainians who were forced to leave their homes. A certain level of influence is already noticeable, she says. Their community — friends, classmates, university professors, and acquaintances — better understands what the Ukrainian women around them are going through. This raises the levels of empathy and mutual support. Nataliia is pleased that their research inspired Swedes to connect more with people from Ukraine and support them more actively.

“I felt a gnawing pain while working on this paper because Ukraine was only perceived through the lens of war. When you only hear terrible things, it’s difficult to empathise because it doesn’t register that these are real people. In my thesis, I attempted to show that we are also humans and how much the war affects the lives of Ukrainians both in Ukraine and outside of its borders.”