CiTy wiTH a Coffee SHade

Premier Club Magazine #3 13
premiercities
«Львов любит
пить, умеет пить и имеет,
что пить», – с гордостью говорили
львовяне. Ведь их город славился
лучшими пивом, водкой и, конечно же, кофе.
В советское время появилось слово «кавьярня»,
резавшее слух истинным львовянам, поскольку
«кавьяр» – это нечто другое, а именно – икра.
• “Lviv likes drinking; is skilled in drinking; and has the
right stuff for drinking”; this phrase would often be said
by the people of this old city at old good times. And they
said that because Lviv was famous for its best beer
nationwide and the superb vodka. The standard
Ukrainian word “kavyarnya” was introduced
during the Soviet rule, but it sounds somewhat
weird for all true Lviv townspeople
There was
as it actually means “caviar”
a lot of
cafés back then.
in the local dialect.
Even today, when
they are founded in numbers,
their urban geography
remains impressive. The local cafés did
not just stick to the central parts of the city;
you could find many of them at the Lviv outskirts
and even outside of the city limits. The
townspeople would normally come in and
say hello to the waiters, and each of those
establishments had its own group of regular
customers who kind of worshipped their
favorite café, so that people not belonging to
such a group had to be very careful if they
intended to say something bad about it.
premier
cities
12
City with a Coffee Shade
Каварень», назовем их кофейнями, было столько, что даже сейчас, когда они
растут, словно грибы, на каждом шагу, их география впечатляет. Они концентрировались
не только в центре Львова, но и на окраинах, и даже за городом.
Львовяне заходили в них, как к себе домой, и здоровались с кельнерами.
Каждая кофейня имела собственную публику, для которой «свое» заведение было
превыше всего, и не дай Бог чернить его плохим словом.
Мода на кофе зародилась во Львове в XVIII веке, хотя сам напиток был известен
и раньше. А первая кофейня в Украине и Речи Посполитой появилась в 1672 году
в Каменце-Подольском. Вскоре в этом городе турки построили уже не меньше десятка
таких заведений. В 1683 году в Вене кофейню открыл наш земляк Юрий Кульчицкий,
получивший за свои заслуги в деле спасения Вены от турок все запасы кофе,
хранившегося в турецком обозе. Итак, мода на кофе пришла во Львов одновремен-
In fact, the coffee drinking tradition was
coined in the 18th century in Lviv, although
this drink had been known to the local
people long before that time. The very first
café in the Ukraine and Poland (or Recz
Pospolita by that time) was established in
1672 in Kamieniec-Podolski. There were
as much as ten cafés in that town, founded
by the Turks. In 1683, the first café was
founded in Vienna by Juri Kulczycki who
had got the entire stock of coffee the Turks
had brought with them as they attempted
to conquer the Austrian capital. As we can
see now, coffee came to Lviv both from the
East and from the West, and then became
very popular among rather rich people and
later among the entire population of the
city.
According to historical records, it became
a custom for the townspeople to ask for a cup
of coffee once they wake up and open their
eyes in the morning. It was the way they followed
the medical prescriptions claiming that
it would not be a right thing for one’s health
to get up and go out fasting. Some women
had a special whim about coffee; they would
usually take it with them as they headed for
12 Winter ‘08-09