On 4 October 2025, Atira Ruthenia took part in "To Kyiv for Festivities: Delicious History Through the Ages", a festival of food culture from Kyivan Rus to the present day, held with the Museum of Kyiv History in the Park of Partisan Glory in Kyiv.
A camp kitchen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania period
Our task was to represent the Ukrainian Middle Ages. In our camp, visitors could see the food and everyday life of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania period up close: we cooked bigos in a cauldron and made bread with lard and flax seeds, served kvass and fresh fruit, and set the table with reconstructed ceramics, wooden bowls and tableware.
Alongside the kitchen, our team showed historical fencing. In the museum's own words, the festival's themed locations included campaign camps of different periods: the KyivGrad club with costumes of Rus, historical fencing from Atira Ruthenia, and the Kyiv-Pechersk Sotnia of the registered Cossack regiment recreating the time of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. Together they showed how the food and everyday life of Ukrainians changed from Rus to the Cossack era.
Food is one of the easiest ways into the past: a guest who stops for a smell from the cauldron stays to ask about the clothes, the tent and the everyday objects on the table.
Thank you
We are grateful to the Museum of Kyiv History for the invitation and for the chance to show the gastronomic and everyday side of the period, and, of course, to share everything we cooked. In May 2026 the club and the museum signed a memorandum of cooperation, which continues this work.
More photos: our Instagram post · the Museum of Kyiv History's post about the festival
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