Ukraine hails victory over Russia in ‘borscht war’ after Unesco ruling
- The famous beetroot soup was declared ‘intangible cultural heritage in need of safeguarding’ after a fast track process prompted by Moscow’s invasion
- The dish is also popular in Russia, which decried the new protected status as an example of ‘contemporary Kyiv nationalism’
The UN’s cultural agency on Friday inscribed the culture surrounding beetroot soup known as borscht in Ukraine on its list of endangered cultural heritage, a recognition sought urgently by Kviv after its invasion by neighbouring Russia.
Ukraine prizes borscht, a nourishing soup with beetroot as its base, as a national dish even though it is also widely enjoyed in Russia, other ex-Soviet countries and Poland.
The Ukrainian culture of borscht cooking “was today inscribed on Unesco’s list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding”, by a Unesco committee, it said.
The decision was approved after a fast track process prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the “negative impact on this tradition” caused by the war, the agency said.
“People are unable not only to cook or grow local vegetables for borscht, but also to come together” to eat it, “which undermines the social and cultural well-being of communities”, it said.