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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

MAGICAL BEVERAGE OF THE ANCIENT CITY Lviv residents measure their lives with cups of coffee

13 November, 2012 - 00:00
Photo by Mykhailo DASHKOVYCH,The Day: PROMINENT LVIV ARTIST PAVLO SHALAISKY BEGINS EVERY WORKING DAY WITH A CUP OF COFFEE
Photo by Mykhailo DASHKOVYCH,The Day: THE TRADITIONS OF DRINKING COFFEE ARE KNOWN NOT ONLY TO CITY FOLK. IN YURI KULCHYTSKY'S NATIVE VILLAGE COFFEE IS ALSO POPULAR, ALBEIT DRUNK, NOT WITH MARLBORO, BUT PRIMA CIGARETTES AND SITTING, NOT AT COMFORTABLE TABLES, BUT ON PRIMITIVE TABORETS

A BEVERAGE OF THE MOOD

All of a sudden, an autumn day popped up in August, with a cold, glassy, and deep sky, with feathers of painfully white clouds and a vicious, piercing wind. Handfuls of flesh, melted by the universal ocean of heat, shrank to tiny shivering bundles of bodies. There was no point in seeking shelter in the expanses of weightless summer clothes. “Enough. I want coffee,” my conscience woke up with this phrase from a TV commercial. Time has come to make my communion with the sacred beverage of this magic city.

Sorry for the elaborate style. It is all mood. I simply got carried away. It is just that this transparent, blue autumn weather and this small white cup of espresso are so appropriate for Lviv. It feels like this is the center of good old Europe — here, at this table, open to all the winds of the continent, your hands are warmed by the hot heart of the Earth, which is beating only in your native city, native by spirit, image, and likeness. This is just how those in love with Lviv traditionally do it — they invariably warm it up with coffee.

This is the way it has always been: on millions of mornings, when London sirs are served fat-free porridge for breakfast and charming Parisians munch croissants in bed, Lviv residents have their first cup of coffee. This tradition — all-embracing, ubiquitous, and surreal — is recognized and carefully nourished by all those who consider themselves part of Lviv in one way or another. Be they Ukrainian or Jewish, Russian or Polish, people here have coffee in the morning and in the evening, they discuss business, socialize with friends, and while away the time over coffee. While the world is racking its brain and fingers trying to count the number of consumed cups of coffee and tea in order to figure out beverage number one, Lviv solved this dilemma a long time ago, calling all its cafes coffee shops and saying facetiously that a real Lviv native has coffee at least six times a day.

Lviv coffee is a mood, a custom, and a fixed poetic image generously embodied in songs and verses. This is the not very noticeable, yet very essential feature that determines the special atmosphere of Lviv, a mythical city being recreated anew by each generation that leaves behind only several eternal components: architecture, European feel, tolerance, and... the invariable aroma of coffee. Because a Lviv resident’s life also means, among other things, coffee.

THE FIRST CUP

Drunk in childhood, during the time when a child becomes aware of the world — a girl secretly paints her lips with her mother’s lipstick, and a boy tries to shave off his yet non-existent stubble with his father’s razor. A little Lvivite sits down at the table with his parents and has his first, albeit weak, coffee, feeling like a real adult.

THE SECOND CUP

Drunk outside the family circle, it represents yet another step into the adult world. It is relished by a teenager with a friend in a clean, cozy coffee shop, where he used to go for ice-cream with his mother. Spending here his allowance money, he enjoys his freedom and equality. The timing of this second cup coincides with one’s first romantic encounters, and for many the first kiss has the taste of fragrant coffee.

THE THIRD CUP

It determines your view of the world. Most have it while in college (for unsure or artistic types this period is delayed until old age). These are the cups that you see on numerous tables in the coffee shops, where young people decide their own fates and the fates of the world, as well as reject and establish traditions. It is during the third cup period when all the myths, legends, and lyrical odes associated with Lviv coffee are created.

In this period, people go to coffee shops not so much to taste coffee but rather to taste a certain social group, an environment, often having in their pockets only money for a cup of coffee and the ride home. Afterwards, in stories and memories, coffee shops have some kind of a legendary aura and often come to mean something epoch-making in the life of a generation.

Unfortunately, these “atmosphere” coffee shops do not have a long life–they live only for a time of active search, self-determination, and self-confirmation by some generation. Our parents reminisce about Shokoladka, and we talk about Babylon, Lialka, Za Kulisamy, and Press Club. Unfortunately, all of them have changed, been commercialized, modernized, or quietly declined, having lost the generations that considered each a kind of cult institution.

Splinters of the third cup world either drifted smoothly into the fourth, or found refuge in other cozy places.

FOURTH CUP

Drunk at desks covered with newspapers, draft contracts, and faxes — at work, during short breaks and business meetings. Having an aftertaste of being in a hurry, this coffee is shared with colleagues and future or former partners, but rarely with a loved one or a good old friend.

The fourth cup is a little bitter – discussed over it are problems less global than coming up with concepts for a new world and more pressing ones, those of a little person in a big world.

THE FIFTH CUP

This is the cup of remembrances, conversations about things undone and regrets. It is drunk by people whose life has already taken place but will still go on for a long time. This is the coffee good old friends have when meeting in places they used to frequent in their youth. It is accompanied by a drawn-out “Do you re-call?” and mixed with regret for time flying — once this coffee shop was so nice, and now it’s poor, old, and dirty, and we also have changed and aged.

THE SIXTH CUP

The tastiest and the most self-sufficient, it is drunk by wise, gray-haired gentlemen and philosophically-minded old ladies when they are awakened at dawn by the thought that they are still alive, that destiny has given them yet another day, another sun, another cup of hot fragrant coffee.

And as long as this unique aroma emanates from the open windows, the city of Lviv lives, and its residents live as well. Because in all thoughts and memories our Lviv reeks not of hot dogs, meat pastries, and dirty entrances, but of coffee and nothing else. This is becoming to the ancient city above all else.

TURKISH “CAMEL FODDER” WITH A UKRAINIAN AFTERTASTE

Coffee in Lviv is definitely something special. It is not merely consumption of a stimulating beverage but a whole ritual in itself. This ritual is perhaps one of the few things (unfortunately) that give Lviv natives a reason to consider themselves, somewhat self-assuredly, part of the European tradition.

Yes, coffee came to Lviv from Europe and rooted strongly and deeply here. And the seeds of coffeemania were sowed in Central Europe by the impoverished Galician aristocrat Yuri-Franz Shelestovych of the Kulchytsky family.

In the sunny morning of 13 August 1684, a modestly dressed merchant cautiously entered house No. 6 on Domgasse Street in Vienna’s Bishofsgor district. The sign above the entrance to the stone building read: “Coffee Shop Under a Blue Bottle.”

The gentleman inquired politely, “Excuse me, could I have some Turkish coffee here?”

“Of course,” joyfully responded the shop owner, Franz Kulchytsky, who was well-known in Vienna.

History has not retained the name of the first customer of this Viennese cafe, nor has the authentic recipe of the coffee made by Kulchytsky survived to this day. However, we know for a fact that Yuri Shelestovych, a native of the village of Kulchytsi in the Carpathian mountains and honorary citizen of the Austrian capital, rescued the Habsburg Empire from the Turks, and afterwards it was he who convinced the subjects of His Majesty Emperor Leopold I that the brown beans were not feed for Turkish camels but rather the basis for a future cult of coffeemania and the prosperity of many nations.

In the summer 1683, the Ottoman hordes besieged Vienna. The defenders could count only on God’s grace not to be slaughtered by the infidels. Emperor Leopold deserted his subjects and appealed to other European monarchs to join their forces to rebuff the Turks. The role of God’s punishing hand fell to the united army led by Polish King Jan III Sobeski. For the decisive battle at the city walls, the army lacked coordination with the defenders of the capital: the Viennese did not even know if there was any sense in waiting for help. Their food supplies were getting low and with them their hopes for survival grew dim. All scouts dispatched from the city to meet the monarch’s united army were captured by the enemy and, according to tradition, impaled. Merchant, warrior, and polyglot Yuri-Franz Shelestovych, who happened to be in Vienna on business, volunteered to do a next to impossible thing—go through the enemy’s camp and reach Sobeski’s headquarters.

On his mortally dangerous mission, Kulchytsky was aided by his perfect mastery of Turkish (in addition to it, he also spoke another seven languages) and his trivial insolence: instead of using back roads like the other scouts did, he went directly through the Turkish camp. The invaders did not suspect their future grave-digger in Moslem disguise. A plan for joint action between the Austrians and the allied army was finally agreed upon, and the Turks were soon routed. After their defeat, the warriors of the green flag made no further attempts to conquer Europe.

The rescued Viennese appreciated the Ukrainian’s heroism by awarding him the title of an honorary citizen. The city authorities, however, were quite baffled by Kulchytsky’s original wish: instead of gold and privileges, he asked for the three hundred trophy sacks of coffee beans. Only a select few ever managed to make such an accurate forecast of market demand for centuries.

When Vienna gradually came back to its senses, the restless Kulchytsky amazed the city folks again by dressing up in oriental attire and treating passersby to Turkish coffee in the street. He charged a symbolic price of 1 kreutzer for a serving of the beverage. At first, his promotion did not yield the expected results: locals did not like the bitter taste and the unusual aroma of the liquid. As most often happens in such situations, a lump of sugar fell accidentally into a cup of coffee. Kulchytsky liked the improved taste, and later the new recipe for the beverage was appreciated by one and all. Since then, business picked up.

To this day, historians argue whether it all happened according to this very scenario: doubts are raised about Kulchytsky’s pioneering in introducing coffee to Europe, and it still remains unclear when exactly the Under a Blue Bottle coffee shop opened. But the Kulchytsi village community, where the distinguished Ukrainian was born (currently in Sambir district, Lviv oblast), is confident that it was their fellow countryman who saved Europe from the caffeine-free life. One can have heated arguments about who in the old world was the first to pour in a porcelain cup the bitter steaming beverage that makes your brain work faster — Parisians are certain that they were the first consumers of coffee, while the Spanish also claim their right of the first night to this aristocratic tradition. And, of course, in this coffee fracas, Ukrainians definitely have a right to say, “We know for sure it’s our achievement, and try to prove otherwise if you can.”

GLOROIUS FOREBEARERS HAVE GREAT DESCENDANTS

Any underage resident of the Kulchytsi village, when asked who Yuri Kulchytsky was will effortlessly deliver you a lecture on their countryman saving Europe from the Turks and opening the first coffee shop in Vienna. This is simply beyond any doubt in the village, especially since as many as 90% of the village residents consider themselves descendants of the noble Kulchytsky family. It does not matter if they bear other names now — they still come from the Kulchytskys, an impoverished, yet very ambitious, aristocratic Ukrainian clan.

Furthermore, the legendary Yuri-Franz is not the only national pride that Kulchytsi has given Ukraine. This is the native village of Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, the very Hetman who, as a song has it, made the first barter transaction in Ukraine by trading “a woman for a pipe and tobacco.”

In general, Kulchytsi has every reason to compete for the title, cradle of Hetmans: some historians believe that Marko Zhmailo, Ivan Sulyma, and Pavlo Kulchytsky-Tuliuk (better known as Pavlo But) were born there as well. For contemporary followers in the footsteps of Herodotus, the fact of Cossack leaders’ birth is not an axiom, but try to convince Kulchytsi residents of this, and you will get a meticulous description of the very barn where one of the above heroes gathered his comrades-in-arms for the march to the Sich.

Here they will be happy to tell you the recipe of Kulchytsi coffee and will try to convince you that this is the exact way their celebrated countryman brewed the beverage — it should be brewed in a special metal vessel called a turka, then some sugar and milk should be added. However, today almost nobody in Kulchytsi sticks to this recipe of the cult drink, and the overwhelming majority of the villagers give their preference to Polish-made instant coffee. At least in the two working local cafes you will be offered this kind of liquid, although while serving it, the bartenders will not forget to tell you about the degree of their kinship to Yuri Kulchytsky-Shelestovych.

And however long the historical debate and whatever doctors say about the harm of excessive coffee consumption, Lviv natives know that there simply cannot be a better and more Lvivan beverage than coffee. It’s all right that while relishing good coffee, not all Lviv inhabitants remember Yuri Kulchytsky, who gave the entire continent (and later perhaps the world) such a pleasing tradition as drinking coffee.

 

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