SAVKA HOUSE - THE UKRAINIAN TRADITIONS KEEPER

If you go 10 kilometers from Kiev, to Novye Petrovtsy village, you can get to one of the Ukrainian specialties – Savka House. It looks like an old Ukrainian house made of clay covered with straw, with wicker fence around. Its hospitable owner, Leonid Shilov (or Savka) restored this house, collected inside it numerous ancient household items and made a museum out of it. Its guests can not only see what items Ukrainians used traditionally, but also try to hammer some iron thing. Savka’s wife offers the guests rich Ukrainian dinner with traditional borsch, vareniks and pies and they can listen to the stories how Ukrainians lived, celebrated holidays and worked...

The house itself smells with straw, earth and herbs. It has a large number of things inside: tiny glass bottles, ancient shoes with wooden nails which “cost like a cow”, various pots, wooden wheels, a large wooden bowl for making bread. The bowl was sometimes used even as altar, because it sometimes happened that during the bad roads season a bride and a bridegroom couldn’t get to the church, then the host could marry them bringing them round the bread bowl three times.

In the yard there is a real smithy, a boots workshop, a pottery, a very neat kitchen garden and an old well. There are also three old bee hives called “borty” near the house. They are not like contemporary bee hives, in the ancient times Ukrainians cut the bee hollow together with the bee family from the tree and brought them to the yard.

Leonid Savka himself is not a village inhabitant, but a Kiev businessman. A historian by education and ethnographer, he decided to make such a museum to share the Ukrainian customs and traditions with other people. At first, his family was a bit skeptical about this idea, but when guests began to come, they helped Leonid and became seriously involved in the project. His daughter painted the stove, his wife made a menu out of old Ukrainian recipes and began cooking for the guests. Leonid started collecting exhibits, spent times at libraries and museums, talked to old Ukrainian people in the villages. Savka House became more and more famous, people from numerous countries came: ambassadors, groups of tourists from USA, Korea, Japan, India, Great Britain, Germany, Australia...

Today Savka house works mostly at week-ends. The guests, mostly foreigners, come for a few hours. They listen to the host’s stories, try to work at the smithy, eat borsch and vareniks and then go back to Kiev. Generous food is an integral part of Savka’s excursion. Sometimes the guests are a bit suspicious about the unusual food they are offered, they cut vareniks, smell and only then eat. Once, the British Ambassador didn’t want to eat borsch with sour cream, because he thought that it was harcho soup with mayonnaise. But then he decided to try it and liked it so much that even learned the Ukrainian words borsch and smetana.

Russian guests were surprised that they were met by bread and salt, “like Presidents”. Belgian Ambassador was glad to learn another tradition: Ukrainians believed that they chase away illnesses and disasters by hitting the fence with stick and crying out “Zima het!” (Winter go out!!). The Ambassador became enthusiastic about this custom and also hit the fence shouting “Het!!”

Leonid Savka believes that rich Ukrainian traditions and history should be remembered and respected. He is a unique person who knows a lot about Ukrainian culture and legends and is eager to share his knowledge with others. He makes plans to get more houses, and to make his rural ethnic museum even larger.

See also: The excursion to Savka House

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