{"id":4853,"date":"2017-10-03T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-09-12T15:14:29","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T19:14:29","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From Ukraine … Featuring Valery @ Sunny Eri: Beauty Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/span> It’s time for this week’s So Your Character is … Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last week’s  So Your Character is from Qatar … be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span>
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<\/span> What I mostly know about Ukraine is the location, that they’ve been at odds with Russia, and the food. I’m a big fan of pierogies, borscht, and blintzes. They’re some of my comfort food. I’m so happy to have Valery on the blog to tell us more about this country!<\/span>
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<\/span> Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts are as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span>
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\nMy name is Valery. I’m young Ukrainian girl with creative mind and bright ideas about now and future life. I live in Kharkiv \u2013 the city in the East of Ukraine. I have a master degree in journalism. But my old hobby of fashion design carried me away from my profession. As many girls all around the World I like to try on new cosmetics. That cosmetic passion lead me to start my own beauty blog in 2011. <\/span><\/div>\n
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\nWhat do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\nUkraine is unique country. Despite its small territory (Ukraine is much smaller than USA, Russia, or China, but bigger than France, Spain, Greece), my country has wonderful and varied nature, culture, even dialects. Due to the history, Ukraine with its capital city Kiev originates back to the ninth century. Different nations came into this territory since that time. Every nation has left their cultural heritage: Russian language on the East and South, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian language on the West, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism. There are no similar regions in Ukraine. Every region, city or village has their own charm. Ukraine is a territory where historical places and traditions naturally combine with the modern life. <\/div>\n
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\nTell me about your country’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\nI live in a country that has different type of climate and terrain. In the south, Ukraine has huge sea territory. Every spring and summer I have a fancy for coming to the seaside \u2013 to have wonderful time on the beach. Autumn is a great time to visit romantic historical castles and have a good time on the West part of Ukraine. Paved streets, old elegant houses, the scent of coffee make our time special. Winter is an excellent time for skiing and snowboarding on the Carpathian Mountains on the West of Ukraine. So every part of my country is passing to the certain season. <\/div>\n
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\nTell me about your country’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\nAs I told earlier, Ukraine is multicultural country. That feature is concerning national food too. We have some common national dishes: Borcht, Vareniki, Galushki, Banush. I don’t think that names says too much for you. The only way to know something about national food is to taste it. Despite the variety of national food, we don’t eat that meal every day (many national dishes need several hours for cooking). Many Ukrainians prefer cold soup named Okroshka. This soup contains sliced cucumbers, boiled eggs, boiled meat, boiled potato, souse and water. The specific of that soup reguires only cold cooking and eating<\/div>\n
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\nTell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\nUkrainians used many idioms in their every day speech, that makes a huge complexity for foreigners for understanding. My most used idiom is \u201cthis is where the dog is buried\u201d that has English version like \u201cso that`s the crux (the heart) of the matter.” It sounds a little weird, yeah?<\/div>\n
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