🎶 What shall we drink?

Drinking

We went to the Lvivarnia — a brewery-museum in Lviv. Our tour guide was, of course, Ivanka!

This museum explained the very invention of beer and alcoholic beverages in Europe, and its arrival in Ukraine.

Ukraine got beer hundreds of years later than Northern/Western Europe. Those parts of Europe needed beer as a healthier alternative to (dirty) water. Ukraine had a different drink (kvas) to solve the water problem. The black soil in Ukraine is fertile and different from elsewhere in Europe — it allows for other fermentation ingredients to be grown efficiently.

We also learned that modern Lviv is effectively Lviv 2.0 — or at least not 1.0. These days, the center of Lviv has a lot of stone buildings. Before 1527, it used to have many wooden Gothic style houses, until the great fire burned everything down. The fire started in a brewery and escalated from roof to roof. In its stead came the Renaissance style Lviv we now enjoy. So we have beer to thank for the brilliant architecture.

After the history lessons, we would have a beer tasting session. Ivanka shared with us many cheers ("будьмо!" or "Let us be!") and customs around drinking alcohol in Ukraine.

I forgot most of what was said on this tour. I could blame the alcohol, but I drank only one of the four glasses. (Luckily, Daan held his liquor better than I and defended Dutch honour in my stead.) That leaves the mystery of my memory deficit. And indeed, let's leave that mystery.

Ivana Kupala

We ended the week with Ivana Kupala. As I wrote last year, this is a traditional midsummer pagan folk festival. It includes jumping over fires, singing, dancing, etc.

First, we played dress-up in vyshyvankas (embroidered shirts). I wore the vyshyvanka I bought last year at Koza Dereza.

After we played dress-up, we went outside to make a fire — and wreaths to put on our heads. There was an air raid alert and the frogs started making noises in resonance with the sirens, actually — that was an interesting phenomenon. The alert would soon be over, as most of them are these days.

Ivana Kupala involves a lot of music too. First, the students who participated in the Wednesday music workshops sang their Ukrainian songs. I skipped that because I do not like singing.

Then Daan thought it would be a brilliant idea to sing "Wat zullen we drinken?" ("What shall we drink?") with me and German virtuoso Johannes. Out of sheer loyalty to my compatriot, I had to oblige. We were so unprepared we had to look up the lyrics for those two verses — and still had a false start and mid-song restarts.

Note: I choose to believe absolutely no recordings of this phenomenon exist — and our classmates were merely holding their phones up to read along lyrics at an unusually vertical angle.

For better singing, we turn to the Draga band. Unfortunately, they turned to all students and wanted us to dance — insisted, even. Luckily, I found a willing dance partner in Sofiia. Unluckily, this would be the parting impression as a student I'd leave her with for this course — as she'll not be teaching me in week 4 and 5.

Note: I choose to believe there are also no recordings of this phenomenon. But if indeed videos of my singing do end up existing, I would not be surprised recordings of this dancing also show up very swiftly indeed.

At the end of the evening, we walked home. We crossed paths with an unleashed barking guard dog, unguarded railways, and a pedestrian crossing on a dangerous 2-by-2 road. A bonus adventure!

I really thought I'd not like the beer tasting and Ivana Kupala, because those things are just not my taste. But my classmate (Roman) was correct: the experience itself would be memorable enough to warrant going. And it is indeed memorable — despite there being no video-recordings.