https://fiona4ukraine.blogspot.com/2026/07/bread-and-war.html

On Sunday evening we had a very enjoyable Hell's Kitchen party - the weather was beautiful, we had lots of food and drink, and a giant Jenga game!

But later that evening, as we were returning home, a bomb hit the large warehouse where 2 months supply of flour for the Kitchen is kept.

Although the bags of flour were not destroyed, the fire damage was so extensive that it will be unusable.

Liuda and Yegor, the Kitchen owners/managers, are looking at options, whilst hoping that our regular donors will help us to replace the flour. One option will be to significantly reduce the number of rolls we make, e.g. by cancelling hospital bread orders. Because, of course, what matters is that hospital patients receive a balanced, nutritious diet of meat, fish or other proteins, carbohydrates - rice, pasta, potatoes (of course!) etc. - and vegetables. But our rolls are delicious, as everybody says, as well as being filling and calorific, and it would be a real shame to take them away.

I could write a lengthy article on the religious, cultural, historical and symbolic significance of bread to Ukraine - and maybe I should. But, briefly...

Ukraine has long been known as the "breadbasket of Europe." Before the Russian invasion in February 2022, Ukraine provided 12% of all the world’s wheat imports.

The Ukrainian flag may be viewed as portraying a blue sky above a yellow wheatfield.

In Christian tradition, bread is equated to the body of Christ and has been depicted in various religious illustrations, including on the walls of Kyiv's Saint Sophia Cathedral, which dates back to the 11th century: peacocks (symbolising immortality) are shown feeding from a bowl of bread. Christianity also gave birth to numerous monastery bakeries and to distinct festive breads in Ukraine, e.g. paska at Easter time.

Welcoming guests with bread and salt, placed on an embroidered cloth (rushnyk), is a Ukrainian tradition dating from pre-Christian times to the present, representing health and prosperity.

In the ongoing war, bread has evolved into a symbol of perseverance and defiance. The traditional Ukrainian bread, 'palianytsia,' with its difficult pronunciation, is famously used to identify and filter out enemy combatants.

However, having discussed the significance of bread with Ukrainians, it seems to be the traumatic experience of the Holodomor (literally, "death by hunger") that has really elevated the symbolic status of bread in Ukraine. The Holodomor was the famine that resulted from Stalin's economic policies in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 (part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–1933, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union). Ukraine was one of the largest grain-producing states in the USSR and was subject to unreasonably high grain quotas compared to the rest of the USSR, which caused it to be hit particularly hard by the famine. The death toll has been recently estimated at between 3.5 and 5 million victims.

Back to the present - the ongoing destruction and death tally from Russian bombs continues to grow. Some weeks are particularly bad, e.g. June 15 to June 21, when strikes included ballistic missiles, guided aerial bombs and drones, over 5 city districts. Hits were recorded, as usual, on residential buildings, logistics hubs, warehouses, civilian enterprises, etc. and, in a particularly senseless attack, a zoo.

32 people were injured, including six children, and nine people died in Kharkiv during that week, including five rescuers of the State Emergency Service, following a double-tap strike.

A couple of days ago (29 June) a 23-year-old woman died as a result of a bomb that fell on an ordinary city street. She had just received her diploma from Kharkiv National Medical University and was going to a photo shoot with her friend, who was seriously injured.

The latest death from bombing (yesterday) was a 15-year-old boy.

Hell's Kitchen Volunteers

We have 5 French volunteers now, which I think is a record. Mael is a young (22 years) volunteer, here for the third time. He always spend hours making enough delicious crepes to feed the entire Kitchen. The other day one of our bakers, who runs cookery classes, invited him as the star guest to her French cooking class.

Tomorrow our youngest ever foreign volunteer arrives - Will is from England and has just turned 18!

We're doing as much as we can to support the Ukrainian volunteers in the Kitchen, including covering kitchen duties when volunteers  travel to visit family over the summer. As a result of this war, nearly every Ukrainian volunteer has relatives - often grandchildren - in another European country.

Foreign volunteers will be asked to help to clean up the warehouse that was bombed and salvage any food supplies possible, e.g. canned goods, for humanitarian aid distribution.

In the midst of constant sirens and daily Russian attacks, the summer beautification of Kharkiv's parks continues apace. I counted at least 14 city council gardeners working on this one flower bed!