As the crowd was filling the yard of Razguliayevo restaurant complex where Made in Ukraine festival took place on June 28-29, it became obvious that Ukraine lacks neither local producers nor interest in them.
The festival that attracted over 4,000 people and 75
local entrepreneurs develop from a “Made in Ukraine” blog,
launched by Yulia Savostina, a PR firm founder. Savostina spent a year
living on things and products made in Ukraine only. She didn’t give up internationally produced stuff that she already had, but was buying only Ukrainian-produced things.
Savostina reported about her results in a blog at www.delo.ua. She found a local substitute to nearly
every product she used, and the best producers made it to the Made in Ukraine festival that she organized to mark the end of the project.
“Ukrainian producers expressed a lot of interest, but often I
had to reject them. If it is Ukrainian but low quality it is not what we
should promote,” she told the Kyiv Post.
Savostina said she found all the participants in two days and then spent a week making sure that every possible product is
represented at the festival – from jewelry and clothes to food and household
chemicals.
The latter appeared to be the most popular product at
the festival according to Savostina.
“We did not expect such a stir, we brought
just a small truck of our products and sold it out in the first two hours,”
says the company’s distribution manager Nina Dubinina.
Gold Drop Ukraine Company
has been in the market for some 12 years, but lately Ukrainians
started paying more attention to its products.
“With the tough situation in Ukraine
and boycott of Russian goods we do feel an increased demand in central and western
Ukraine,” says company’s commercial director Robert Fedortsev.
The producers
ensure their products are ecologically safe and much cheaper than other
chemicals on the market.
All the variety of company’s chemical products is made
in Rohatyn, Western Ukraine and is represented in most of the supermarket
chains in Ukraine.
“One just has to look closely,” Dubinina says. “We
don’t have a big marketing budget so we are usually placed on the lower shelves.”
Oleksandra Nikolayeva from Kyiv
says she already bought locally produced peanut butter and toys.
“Some time ago I decided to launch an online store for foreigners and I came here to see what I can offer,” says
Nikolaeva.
The woman was particularly interested in clothing,
home décor pieces and jewelry.
A small crowd of
women near a tiny table with necklaces proves that Nikolaeva is right in her preferences.
Etnicas is an online shop of ethnic jewelry that brought such an attention.
Nataliya Godlevska its owner and the only producer says she did expect her
place to be popular. She is a specialist in ancient Ukrainian culture and
started producing her ethnic jewelry some 6 years ago. “First my clients were
just my friends, later the circle widened and I opened an internet shop,” she
explains. Godlevska produces what she learned our ancestors would wear some
several centuries ago. “Of course it is not 100 percent authentic, because we
just wouldn’t were what they wore then, but I try to make it as close to those
times as I can,” she explained.
Festival guests
say they were pleased to discover the clothing and shoes by Ukrainian designers, Ukrainian sausages and sweets and even Ukrainian cosmetics. Others say they’ve been following the project for quite a while and already
knew what they are coming for.
“So we bought
these very tasty sweets from Lviv, children clothes, Ukrainian sausages and are
now going to buy some clothes. We saw some beautiful dresses here,” said
Iryna Trukhina who came to the festival with her daughter.
The daughter, Maria Trukhina,
says she is also very much satisfied with the project.
“We’ve actually been
following “Made in Ukraine” blog for several months so it wasn’t a surprise
that there are so many good things produced in Ukraine,” she said. “But the
whole idea is worth a praise. Why would one look for all this stuff abroad
if it is so good here.”
Story by Daryna Shevchenko, photos by Anastasia Vlasova.
