By Serhiy Yarmoliuk, The Day
But maybe we have nothing left in terms of national identity?
After analyzing the merchandise which was in most demand with foreign tourists, I came to the conclusion that it was headgear, generally available and affordable.
Take the Stetsons so popular in the US. While in Mexico one cannot but purchase at least one sombrero or the three-cornered pirate or Napoleon hat in France or Spain.
The Soviet cloth cap (traditionally worn by Vladimir Lenin in all the official portraits) remains one invariably popular commodity for all tourists. Also those worn by the Soviet general officers. And mammoth tusks and antlers, except that all this is Ukraine’s legacy from the evil empire.
So what did Ukraine have to offer? I had to rack my mind and was saddened by what I came up with: maces, jugs and pots, buckets, brooms, Taras Shevchenko or Cossack figurines, miniature Ukrainian village huts, yellow-blue and trident national symbols, and Ukrainian-style matrioshkas. Not much in terms of national identity. Practically anything found in any Eastern European country, designed one way or the other. We must have something special, but we do not see it on display. Why?
We have many factories producing souvenirs. They are closing, most likely because no one wants to buy their products. Time to change production and marketing strategy.
Ethnic Ukrainians visiting their forefathers’ land are mostly interested in national memorials, religious structures, old cities with their narrow streets, and in the people inhabiting this country. They care little for anything else. They have enough and to spare. People visiting from former Soviet republics are mostly interest in Ukrainian pepper vodka, fatback, local bread, and Kyiv tortes. I called a friend of mine in St. Petersburg and told him I was planning to spend my leave of absence there and asked him what I should bring along as friendly gifts. He said Ukrainian vodka, fatback, a Kyiv torte, and bread. Why should I blame him?
By Vanda Kovalska, The Day
Souvenirs. The academic Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language explains the word as a “present given as a memento, an object reminding one of somebody or something.” Giving somebody an expensive present without reason is considered a breach of decorum, but and sometimes one is tempted or needs to do so. The resourceful and refined French came up with the notion of souvenir which actually means to remember. A little nice or funny thing which can be presented with no strings attached.
Souvenirs are bought primarily by tourists. In Ukraine tourists are not necessarily foreigners. A resident of the Donbas visiting Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia) wants to buy something characteristic of the locality and the same applies to a person spending holidays in the Crimea: something that will remind him of the sea and sunlit beaches. Naturally, such tourists will look for souvenirs. There is a special store in Tolstoy Square in Kyiv called Ukrainian Souvenir. Despite fierce competition from countless artisan peddlers, its assortment attracts numerous customers. Foreigners visiting Kyiv on a second or third occasion are sure to drop in, for here they will find a variety of handicrafts supplied if not from all over Ukraine, then from quite a number of oblasts.
Basically, merchandise is supplied by individual artisans, a little every time they visit, says salesgirl Valentyna Redko. They come from Kosiv and Kolomiya (Ivano-Frankivsk oblast), bringing carved and inlaid wood articles, also samovars from Chernihiv. Souvenirs from Petrykivka: decorated dishes, trays, boxes, and teakettles are always in demand. At present, the assortment is mostly made of expensive articles of individual design. There is a souvenir factory in Dnipropetrovsk oblast, but sending a truckload to Kyiv is too expensive: after paying the gasoline and tax bills there is too little left by way of revenue.
Wood articles constitute most of the assortment, ranging from a 60 kopiyka cigarette holder to boxes selling at Hr 300 and over.
Pictures made using pressed and painted straw on cloth come from an artisan family. Department head Vira Semylietova says they are valued highly abroad.
In previous years the best ceramic pieces were supplied from Vasylkiv. Now there are very few available, but there are plenty porcelain articles from Polonne: folk figurines and miniature sculptural compositions.
Valentyna Lysenko has been head of the needlework section for twelve years.
“In previous years needlework was bought by both foreigners and natives. Now you see them hanging over there, the simpler ones priced at Hr 50 and those with lace at Hr 500. Clothes, tablecloths, and towels are supplied by factories from all over Ukraine. Embroidery patterns are varied. This ornament is from Lviv, these flowers are from Kyiv oblast, and this blue-white pattern from Reshetylivka.
There is a new category of customers in Ukraine. They buy souvenirs as eagerly as foreigners, except they are not rich. It is just that they have a chance to make a trip abroad or send their children to vacation there.
Iryna K.’s daughter spent her winter holidays in Italy and will be going on another trip soon under the Chornobyl relief program. Mother and daughter visited Ukrainian Souvenir to buy a nice wood cachepot, paying Hr 6.
At the Art Salon on Bohdan Khmelnytsky St. I found attractive ceramic lamps shaped like Kyiv churches, each with a candle holder and a small bowl for incense, selling at Hr 50-100; bronze jasper-based figurines of Kyiv Princes Oleh and St. Volodymyr priced at Hr 140-285, and a stone ashtray called Cossacks (Hr 280). Stone is currently in.
Finally, Liliya Artyshevska, department head at a small souvenir store on Khreshchatyk, said something that could summarize this:
“Tourism and the souvenir business could bring the state a lot of profit.”
Except that they don’t, for reasons best known to the state.






