Foundation Cheese and Wine Evening

Friday 17th August 2007 saw the Foundation's first social event for members and friends, a successful and convivial cheese and wine evening held at the Consulate at Windsor Street in Edinburgh. Thanks to the hard work of Senia Urquhart and Lesley Kormylo, ably assisted by staff from the Consulate, members and their friends were treated to a wide selection of cheeses and fresh fruit accompanied by some fine wines and soft drinks for the more abstemious of the attendees.

Consul General welcomes the Lord Provost

The emphasis, of course, was on the social with no formal business arranged but the Foundation was pleased to welcome a visit from the City of Edinburgh's Lord Provost, George Grubb, and his wife. The Consul General, Bohdan Yaramenko, who had kindly agreed to host the event, expressed his pleasure at welcoming the Lord Provost to the Consulate and spoke of his the level of co-operation that he was receiving from the Council. The Chairmen of the Management Committee, Jim McKay, added to Mr Yaramenko's welcome and expressed a hope that this was just the first visit that the Lord Provost would make to a Foundation event.

The Lord Provost was not the only distinguished guest, Gabriele Papadia de Bottini, the recently appointed Italian Consul, was in attendance with his wife and, with Mr Bottini, previous posting being in Ukraine,

Consul General Yaramenko with Marina Lewycka and Peter Kormylo

he was clearly maintaining the close relations with Ukraine that he developed in Kiev.

A surprise guest was the novelist Marina Lewycka, whose book A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian has been extremely popular in recent years. Ms Lewycka, who was in Edinburgh to speak at the Book Festival, was on her way to another function with a friend when she saw the Ukrainian flag outside the Consulate and decided to drop in out of curiosity. She was warmly welcomed and provided an opportunity for a number of Foundation members to have their photographs taken with her.

Entertainment for the evening was provided by the Ukrainian Folk Group Yoghurt,

Yoghurt entertaining members and guests

who are in Edinburgh playing at various venues during the Festival. The name has nothing to do with dairy products, it means very good band in Ukrainian and that is exactly what they were, very good. Comfortable playing both Ukrainian and Scottish folk music, they were clearly a big hit and you may be interested to hear them playing at the Ukrainian Club in Royal Terrace, Edinburgh on Saturday 25th August.

Overall, the evening was very enjoyable and the Foundation is looking forward to organising other social events to accompany its other activities.