Babas Borshch Contest in Toronto

A borshch competition marking the 100th anniversary of St. Volodymyr Cathedral. Guests vote for the “Best Borshch 2026”: $300 for the winner and $100 for the best presentation.

Ukrainian Borshch Festival in the heart of Budapest

More than ten kinds of borshch cooked to family recipes, a concert, activities for children and a charity fair in Városháza Park. All proceeds go to Ukrainian soldiers. Hungarian media call it the twelfth edition.

Borshch-basket vegetables got cheaper again in a week

After a spike in July, wholesale prices for all five vegetables in the basket turned down. A week earlier onions had nearly doubled — the 2026 season turned out to be the most volatile yet for the borshch basket.

Wholesale: beetroot 10–12 · cabbage 18–23 · carrot 18–35 · onion 20–30 · potato 11–28 UAH/kg

Kmytiv museum is recruiting teams for its fifth Borshch Battle

The Bukhanchuk Museum of Fine Arts in the Zhytomyr region opened registration for the fifth Borshch Battle, inviting cooking teams, folk craftspeople and musicians. The announcement gave no date; previous editions were held in August.

The Bear's stars cooked Ukrainian borshch for NYT Cooking

Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Ayo Edebiri made a vegetarian borshch from the family recipe of his late mother-in-law Lidiia Yemchuk, a Kyivan. The actor taught his co-star to pronounce “borshch” properly, stressed the dish’s Ukrainian origin and its UNESCO heritage status, and filmed wearing a T-shirt with the Ukrainian flag. What actually annoyed Ukrainians on Threads was not the vegetarian base but the advice to serve borshch with fresh cucumber and boiled egg — in the recipe those are marked optional and meant for the cold version.

"So, borshch is the national dish of Ukraine. It's from the Middle Ages"

Laura Loomer tasted borshch for the first time in her life — in Kyiv

The American far-right blogger from Donald Trump’s circle, who had previously spread Russian narratives, visited Yevhen Klopotenko’s restaurant during a trip to Kyiv. Over one evening she tried borshch, kachana kasha, hamula, smoked pear and kvass; the chef told her the history of borshch and its UNESCO heritage status. The trip became part of a shift in her rhetoric on Ukraine.

Fifth Ukrainian Borshch Day in Lisbon: 100 litres and 1,000 dumplings

In Bensaúde Park the Association of Ukrainian Women in Portugal and the Union of Ukrainians held a charity celebration: over 100 litres of borshch, more than 1,000 varenyky, home baking, an embroidered-shirt parade and a concert. Proceeds go to the “Children of Heroes” project, which will bring 20 children of fallen soldiers to Portugal for several weeks.

100+ litres of borshch · 1,000+ varenyky · 20 children in the programme

Foreign Policy: "The Battle for Borsch"

The American magazine published a long piece by Paul Hockenos on borshch as an instrument of Ukrainian cultural identity. It opens with a visit to Yevhen Klopotenko’s Lviv café and recounts how in 2022 the chef, together with the Ukrainian Culture Institute he founded, accelerated borshch’s inscription on the UNESCO list by assembling over 700 pages of historical evidence and recipes. Among the variants described: southern fish borshch, Carpathian white borshch and a kosher pink borshch made with lemon juice.

Ukrainians eat 68 kg of potatoes a year, not 140 — KSE study

The Kyiv School of Economics and the Ukrainian Potato Producers Association debunked the baseline figure that borshch-basket calculations had relied on for years: actual fresh-potato consumption is half the commonly cited estimates. Potatoes are eaten by 98% of Ukrainians — and by 100% of those aged 65 and over; 12.4 million people grow them for themselves.

68 kg/year instead of 120–140 · villages 7.7 kg/month, Kyiv 4.1 kg/month

The Borshch Bible: 800 pages and over 1,000 recipes in its second edition

Svitlana Koronenko’s book was presented in a revised and expanded second edition in Kyiv. It runs to 800 pages and more than a thousand authentic recipes, drawing on roughly 200 culinary, ethnographic, statistical and literary sources dated 1584–2022. The author put 500,000 UAH of her own prize money into the printing.

800 pages · 1,000+ recipes · sources from 1584 to 2022

UNESCO moved Ukraine's borshch safeguarding report to 2027

Borshch has been on the UNESCO list of heritage in need of urgent safeguarding since 2022, and Ukraine must report periodically on its condition. The report was due in December 2024, then moved to December 2026, and now the committee has shifted every country onto a single global deadline of 30 June 2027. This is a procedural change: borshch’s status itself is unchanged.

One day of borshch in Kraków raised 187,800 zloty for Ukraine's army

The season’s first Gremi Borsch Fest was held at Łąka na Wesołej under the patronage of Ukraine’s Consulate General, headlined by the band Mad Heads. In a single day guests donated 187,800 zloty — all of it to the Armed Forces. Since 2022 the project has grown to 31 festivals across Polish cities and 4.6 million zloty raised by more than 2,600 volunteers.

187,800 zloty in one day · 31 festivals and 4.6m zloty since 2022

BORSCHT Collective: Lviv volunteers are swapping field kitchens for food trucks

An initiative of soldiers and volunteers is moving army catering from Soviet-era field kitchens to mobile food trucks built into converted buses — with modern equipment, a new menu and training for cooks. Two mobile kitchens are already running and five more trucks are planned for the 125th Lviv Brigade; one kitchen cooks for 200 people at a time.

2 kitchens running · 5 trucks planned · 200 portions per batch

1,418 litres of borshch with carp — a record in Pereiaslav

At the regional festival “Kyiv Region — Land of Strength”, held for Constitution Day, 1,418 litres of borshch with fried carp were cooked in the open air. The festival brought together all 69 communities of the Kyiv region plus communities relocated from Luhansk region.

1,418 litres · 69 communities

Young Borshch 2026: 28 cauldrons and a national record in Rivne region

In Velyka Omeliana 30 teams — from seven regions, the relocated Bakhmut community and the veterans’ team “Trajectory of Taste” — cooked around 1,500 litres of young borshch in 28 cauldrons (the smallest held 50 litres). The National Register of Records of Ukraine certified a record for the number of cauldrons at a single location. TV presenter Kostiantyn Hrubych cooked here to a recipe from the era of Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozkyi, using redcurrants for acidity. Donations and wristbands raised 289,279 UAH for a VR lab for soldiers’ psychological rehabilitation.

~1,500 l in 28 cauldrons · 30 teams · 289,279 UAH for soldiers

"I thought borshch could not surprise me": octopus borshch in Cyprus

Yevhen Klopotenko posted a photo from a Cypriot restaurant where borshch is made with octopus, cured olives, sage sour cream and chilli oil — and served with a squid-ink bun. The chef admitted this version did surprise him after all.

Ukrainian restaurant Anelya ranked 28th among Chicago's 50 best

Chicago Magazine placed the Ukrainian restaurant Anelya in Avondale 28th in its ranking; Time Out Chicago put it 30th. The restaurant, run by chefs Johnny Clark and Beverly Kim, was the first Ukrainian restaurant in the world to be included in the Michelin Guide, in 2024; red and green borshch are among its signature dishes.

A borshch contest at Green Week in Washington State

The Ukrainian cultural centre Toloka held a Ukrainian food festival at Marina Park in Kirkland. The centrepiece was a publicly judged borshch contest between five organisations: bakeries and markets alongside Ukrainian Greek Catholic and Orthodox parishes.

Ukrainian-founded Willa Biała in Warsaw enters the Michelin Guide

The restaurant in Warsaw’s Mokotów district, founded by Serhii and Iryna Slobodianiuk from Lutsk, was included in the Michelin Guide Poland 2026 as a recommended venue — without a star or a Bib Gourmand. Its director is Vira Shportak from Chernivtsi and its chef Rostyslav Tomylin from Berdiansk. Borshch is served traditionally: with a garlic-sauce pampushka, smoked and fresh salo.

Vilnius Pink Soup Fest: 176,000 people and 6.5 tonnes of cold borshch

Lithuania’s festival of šaltibarščiai, cold beetroot soup, ran for three days for the first time and drew 176,650 visitors, 33,800 of them from abroad. Around 6.5 tonnes of soup were eaten over the weekend, and Vilnius airport was temporarily renamed “Vilnius Pinkternational Beetport”. This is a tradition distinct from Ukrainian hot borshch — and the region’s best example of beetroot soup working as a city brand.

176,650 visitors · 6.5 tonnes of soup · ~€10m economic impact

Klopotenko became the first Ukrainian chef on Poland's MasterChef

In 15 seasons of the Polish version of the show, a Ukrainian chef appeared for the first time. Klopotenko presented authentic Ukrainian cooking, including smoked pear and a bee-based appetiser. Ukrainian media framed it through his work as a borshch ambassador who has previously fed borshch to European leaders.

A record in Dnipro: 200 litres of borshch with fried zander

For Family Day, 200 litres of borshch were cooked in Dnipro to a recipe using fried zander — and it was precisely the local ingredient that decided it for the expert panel. The event brought together soldiers of the 7th Air Assault Corps, veterans and city residents; the National Register of Records of Ukraine certified the achievement.

200 litres · a record for the recipe, not the volume

Olia Hercules's "Strong Roots" among the James Beard Award nominees

The chef’s memoir “Strong Roots: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Ukraine” made the nominee list for the James Beard Foundation Media Awards 2026. The book tells a century of Ukrainian history through four generations of one family, and borshch runs through it as both recipe and symbol. It does not appear on the final winners’ list.

Borshch at Ukraine's Embassy in Washington, with World Central Kitchen

As part of Passport DC the embassy and WCK held “Stories of Hope”: a chef from the WCK Chef Corps served traditional Ukrainian borshch as a way of talking about community resilience during the war. The programme also included a conversation with Ambassador Olha Stefanishyna and WCK CEO Javier García.

An American TikToker tried borshch for the first time in Los Angeles

William Seremetis, who tastes dishes from a different country every day, went to Los Angeles’s first Ukrainian restaurant, Mom, Please, asking for the most authentic experience possible. He was served borshch with sour cream, onion, dark bread and salo, plus holubtsi, varenyky, syrnyky, bagels with jam, herbal tea and kvass — the last of which he described as something between beer and soy sauce. Syrnyky and the tea scored highest.

Borshch on home-made kvass — for Prince Harry in Kyiv

Prince Harry visited Kyiv for the second time, spoke at the 18th Kyiv Security Forum, and after the official programme attended a charity dinner cooked by chef and MasterChef judge Volodymyr Yaroslavskyi. The chef published the menu himself: Ukrainian borshch on home-made kvass, pickled wild garlic, garlic scapes, organic dill and Ukrainian wines.

"Tonight's menu: Ukrainian borshch on home-made kvass… all honest, all ours"

Borshch as UNESCO heritage — before ambassadors of 20+ countries in Prague

Ukraine’s embassy in the Czech Republic held a cultural and gastronomic event presenting Ukrainian borshch to diplomats from more than twenty countries; Yevhen Klopotenko led the presentation. Ambassador Vasyl Zvarych said: “This is not only recognition of a unique recipe. It is recognition of a living tradition passed from grandmother to granddaughter.”

London's Tatar Bunar enters the Michelin Guide, with a borscht ceremony for two

The Shoreditch restaurant run by Alex Cooper and Anna Andriienko was added to the Michelin Guide’s selected restaurants — the first step towards a star or a Bib Gourmand. Michelin noted that the venue gave fresh impetus to the local dining scene. The menu features a “Tatar bunar borscht ceremony for two” at £45, with vegetarian and vegan options. The pair’s first restaurant opened in Odesa in 2024.

borscht ceremony for two — £45

Usyk brought Anthony Joshua to Kyiv and fed him borshch

The former opponent, now a friend of the Ukrainian undisputed champion, came for the Rising Stars boxing night. Usyk gave the Briton a tour of the city, including Independence Square and the memorial to the fallen. “He tried borshch, varenyky too, listened to Ukrainian songs. I showed him the things that matter most to me, we prayed, we went to Maidan,” Usyk said.

"Deconstructed borshch without broth" on the MasterChef season 17 premiere

In the opening episode of the new season on STB, Vitalii Yehorov from Pavlohrad, recently discharged from the armed forces, made a deconstructed borshch without broth — and was scored by the judges. A separate promo clip for the season built on the line about a contestant who “cooks borshch better than Klopotenko”.

Klopotenko signed a memorandum with the Defence Ministry: recipes for army cooks

Through its procurement agency the ministry launched “Cooking for Battle” together with Klopotenko’s NGO Cult Food — a recipe collection, video recipes and training for cooks to standardise army catering. The launch was accompanied by public debate about “army borshch” and the shortcomings of the catering reform.

Ivano-Frankivsk's borshch index: 158.3 UAH — and a mayor who did not believe it

The city maintains its own official borshch index as a measure of purchasing power. For 2025 meat borshch came to 158.3 UAH and the meat-free version to 76.1 UAH. Mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv publicly doubted the figure and suggested handing an official exactly that sum so they could buy the ingredients and cook the borshch themselves.

meat borshch: 73.5 UAH (2021) → 158.3 UAH (2025), up 115% in four years

Boris Johnson came to Kyiv on the fourth anniversary of the invasion — and ate borshch

The former British prime minister took part in the Yalta European Strategy forum and visited Klopotenko’s restaurant, where he had borshch and kachana kasha. It was not his first visit to the place: the chef has recounted how the ex-premier once turned up unannounced with two bodyguards, sat down near the toilet, ate his borshch and left.

World Central Kitchen: borshch in aid rations on the invasion's fourth anniversary

Marking four years of the full-scale invasion, WCK said it distributes warm portions of borshch in Ukraine as part of its food aid. The organisation’s running total in Ukraine is over 295 million meals; by some accounts that is around 300,000 meals a week for civilians and emergency workers.

295m meals in Ukraine · ~300,000 a week

A ready-made base makes meat-free borshch 60% more expensive

The Finance Ministry’s February 2026 calculation revealed a striking convenience premium: a three-litre pot of meat-free borshch made with tomato paste costs 36.11 UAH, while the same pot made with a ready beetroot-and-tomato base costs 58 UAH. The meat basket that month rose to 166.60 UAH, of which pork ribs alone accounted for 87.17 UAH — more than half.

meat-free borshch: 36 UAH with tomato paste vs 58 UAH with a ready base

Borshch in Marseille: chefs from Lviv, Kharkiv and Odesa in the Season of Ukraine in France

As part of the “Le Voyage en Ukraine” programme, Ukrainian chefs came to Marseille to introduce the French to borshch — for some guests it was the first borshch of their lives. Kharkiv chef Vitalii Nuzhnyi cooked a version with vegetables and duck; a “Borscht in action” event was held at the Marché du Vieux Port.

A Japanese village brought Ukraine's ambassador its own beetroot — and borshch in single-serve packs

A delegation from the village of Asahi-mura in Nagano Prefecture, home to about 5,000 people, brought Ambassador Yurii Lutovinov beetroot they had grown themselves along with a product new to the Japanese market: ready borshch in single-serve packaging. Local farmers have grown beetroot for more than forty years but barely used it in their own cooking; after 2022, when over two thousand Ukrainians evacuated to Japan, they began learning Ukrainian recipes. The village’s annual harvest festival now includes a separate Borshch Day.

"Sometimes a single borshch says more than many speeches from high podiums" — Yevhen Klopotenko

Imports of borshch-basket vegetables doubled over 2025

According to customs data, Ukraine sharply increased purchases of borshch-basket vegetables abroad — a consequence of the failed 2024 harvest and high winter-spring prices. Potatoes rose most dramatically: 5.3 times by volume. In the first half of 2026, after a good harvest, cabbage imports more than halved.

275,000 tonnes for ~$169m (+106% year on year) · potatoes ×5.3

The restaurant Borshch relaunched on a highway outside Kyiv

The Ukrainian-cuisine venue reopened on the first floor of a KLO filling station at kilometre 20 of the Zhytomyr highway — an example of a borshch brand in a roadside format. Ukrainian borshch with ribs and pampushky is 187 UAH on the menu.

borshch with ribs and pampushky — 187 UAH

317 litres of hetman's borshch over an open fire in Slavske

At the third charity gastro-tourism festival “Christmas Borshch” in the Boyko Culture Centre, 317 litres of hetman’s borshch were cooked over an open fire. Representatives of Book World Records certified the record in the category “largest volume of hetman’s borshch” — the fifth record set in the Stryi district in 2025.

317 litres of hetman's borshch

Tom Parker Bowles devoted a Country Life column to borshch

The British food critic, son of Queen Camilla, wrote about borshch as Ukraine’s national dish and added his own recipe — made with oxtail, beetroot, beans, cabbage and sour cream. On its origins he was blunt: “It is, of course, the national dish of Ukraine and evidence points to its being born there, too. Russia would disagree, but there was a Kyiv, as the old Ukrainian saying goes, when Moscow was little more than ‘a wheel track in a forest’.”

Record 2025 harvest: the borshch basket nearly halved in price

The Economy Ministry reported that the 2025 vegetable harvest exceeded the previous year’s and that there would be no shortage. Prices for every item in the borshch basket collapsed against autumn 2024 — the cheapest borshch season in years, and the baseline against which both the winter’s “-80% year on year” and the 2026 summer forecast were later measured.

autumn 2025: every item in the basket nearly half the price of a year earlier

Borshch from demined fields — in the centre of Tokyo

Ahead of the Ukraine Mine Action Conference, as part of the “Soul of Soil” project, Yevhen Klopotenko ran a masterclass in which 40 international delegates cooked borshch and halushky themselves from flour, onions, potatoes, carrots and oil grown on demined fields in the Mykolaiv, Kherson and Kharkiv regions. In total more than 450 guests tasted the borshch. Among those present was singer Jerry Heil, an ambassador for humanitarian demining.

40 delegates cooked · 450+ guests tasted

Johnson thought borshch was Russian — and apologised

In an interview with Radio Free Europe, Klopotenko said Boris Johnson had previously eaten borshch at a Russian restaurant in London and therefore believed the dish was Russian. In Kyiv he saw otherwise: “Here he saw a different picture, he apologised: ‘I didn’t know.’ Then he ate syrnyky and was delighted.” The chef also named Prince Harry and Princess Anne among those who have tried Ukrainian borshch and kachana kasha.

Foreign Policy: how cooking became resistance

The magazine published a review of Olia Hercules’s memoir “Strong Roots”, which tells Ukraine’s recent history through her relatives’ experience. It deals separately with the Russian-Ukrainian dispute over borshch’s origins, which ended with the culture of Ukrainian borshch cooking being inscribed on the UNESCO list in July 2022.

Ukrainian Borshch Day — a holiday that still does not officially exist

The second Saturday of September is marked in Ukraine as Ukrainian Borshch Day, even though the draft parliamentary resolution No. 6361 from January 2022 has never been adopted. In 2025 the celebration spread across communities: the Iziaslav area marked it officially, Kharkiv opened its first halushky restaurant for the date, and Yevhen Klopotenko ran a pop-up with three conceptual borshch — green with nettle, red with lamb, and one with yellow peppers and marigolds.

Battle of the Borshch 2025 in Krolevets

At the Krolevets culture centre 17 entrants presented their borshch to a festival contest judged by a panel of professional cooks.

17 entrants

Gremi Borsch Fest came to Kraków's Tauron Arena for the first time

The Ukrainian culture festival, which its organisers call Europe’s largest Ukrainian street festival, was held for the first time in the summer zone at Tauron Arena Kraków. Entry was free and all donations went to Ukraine’s Armed Forces. Across the 2025 season (10 cities, 2,959,486 zloty) Kraków ranked second by amount raised, behind Warsaw.

2025 season: 10 cities, 2,959,486 zloty for Ukraine's army

The New York Times reviewed Olia Hercules's "Strong Roots"

The NYT book section covered the chef’s memoir — a century of Ukrainian history through four generations of one family, with borshch as one of its recurring recipes. The US edition is published by Knopf at 288 pages; the British edition by Bloomsbury.

Borshch in a Clay Pot: oven-cooked borshch in Opishnia

Ethnographer Olena Shcherban held her gastro festival at her own homestead in the Poltava region, where borshch are cooked in clay pots inside wood ovens. More than a hundred kinds of borshch were announced, along with 70 varieties of wedding pastry, halushky, varenyky, shpundra and verhuny. The festival is accompanied each year by a dispute with local authorities over mass-event permits.

The Velyka Pysarivka borshch festival travelled to Kirovohrad region

The fifth borshch festival of this Sumy-region community was held away from home — in the Priiutivka community in the Kirovohrad region, for its eighth anniversary. The two communities formalised a partnership the same day under the state programme “Shoulder to Shoulder: United Communities”, and the proceeds went to Ukraine’s Armed Forces.

Borshch Empire: a study of how a pan-Soviet cuisine was manufactured

A master’s thesis appeared in the Kyiv School of Economics repository under the title “Borshch Empire: the development of the national cuisines of the Soviet republics and the making of a ‘pan-Soviet cuisine’ in the 1950s–1980s”. One chapter is devoted to “Borshch the Soviet way: the shifting relationship between national cuisines and the pan-Soviet one”.