Ukrainian quality hits shelves

The event was held last weekend in the Kyiv’s heart - on Kontraktova Square. Many people wandered between wooden booths and tents stocked with clothes, makeup, ornaments, footwear, and furniture. And, of course, everyone stopped beside the food stalls as they offered many a dozen kinds of burgers, seafood, barbecue, vegan dishes, delicious desserts and beverages of diverse temperature and alcohol content. The holiday has been organized by Yulia Savostina, journalist, blogger, and writer and supported by the business portal Delo.ua, the Womo.com.ua website, the MMR and the Ekonomika Communication Hub projects.

Among the almost two hundred participants of the event Den has also been present. In the ocean of delicacies and clothing we have not lost ourselves: people could always buy our newspapers, glossy magazines and books. Some of the visitors wore our branded things: shawls and t-shirts. Thus, Victoria Marynych, university lecturer, attended the festival wearing the "Fine girls read Den” t-shirt and pre-ordered our future novelty – the “Return to Constantinople” book. “I have been reading Den for a long time. And I enjoy it,” says Marynych. “As a characteristic of a modern person, the intellect, unfortunately, is relegated to the background. But I want to have more intelligent people around. Den offers a lot of philosophical things that encourage thinking.”

People bought books for themselves and for the libraries in the east. The publications “Ukraine Incognita. TOP-25”, as well as the “Armor-piercing journalism” and the “Subversive literature” book series have been met with a traditionally strong demand. The new issue of “Route No. 1: Axiom-Farm” has been swiftly swept off the shelves, so we had to bring an additional supply of the magazines.

Viktor Sydorenko from Sumy area has bought the issue of our glossy about his native region. “The festival seems to be designed for young people. My wife and I came here mostly for window-shopping,” shares his impressions about the holiday Sydorenko. “On such events we usually buy food: here it was the second time we purchased this cheese made with a Georgian technology, as well as meat products from Chernihiv. Some of the products we encounter here will be ordered online later by the children. It’s about time something like that holiday should be organized, because nowadays it’s too gloomy, too difficult time to live.”

The first “In Search Of Made in Ukraine” festival took place a year ago. “The principal achievement is that we already exist for a year,” says Savostina. “And during this time our buyer has become finicky. People do buy Ukrainian products, but they are choosing their purchases meticulously. No one buys something just because it was made in Ukraine. And the sellers engage in the battle for the buyer. Generally, I would like to hold the festival four times a year. This will allow us to get used to the Ukrainian producers and will teach us to make use of everything they have to offer. I think that eventually we will introduce some process for selection. It’s better to feature only a hundred manufacturers, but to have the visitors buy something from every booth. So, in the future, we will work on quality, not quantity.”