On Jan. 20-22 Kyiv’s Ukrainian House hosted the first Korona Chocolate Festival organized by Kraft Foods Ukraine, owner of the Korona trade mark. The organizers say that similar events pull crowds in Europe and America. Every year tourists from far and wide descend on the Italian town of Perugia to sample a smorgasbord of sweetmeats. Two years ago this festival drew a record number of 900,000 gourmets and visitors. For a couple of day every year the Belgian town of Verviers turns into the world’s sweetest town. At one time it was home to 300 chocolate factories. Festival visitors can familiarize themselves with the process of making sweets, which apparently has long-standing traditions. France holds a one-of-a-kind pageant to elect Miss Cocoa. It also features a fashion show, where designers display clothing or accessories made of chocolate in addition to regular cloth dresses or suits.
“We love Ukraine and explore Ukrainians’ culinary preferences,” says Kraft Foods Ukraine CEO Yuriy Logush. “Korona was developed specifically for the Ukrainian market. Its production was launched at our factory in Trostianets in October 1995. In those days, much like now, we faced a lot of competition from 26 confectioners, six or eight of which produced chocolate bars. But very soon we won the hearts of consumers and in 1997 the original dark chocolate Korona became the nation’s No. 1 brand. We are holding onto the lead to this day because we buy high-quality ingredients and maintain the highest production standards. After all, we operate Ukraine’s only full cycle of chocolate production — from the treatment of cocoa beans to ready products. Proof that our technologies are the best is the fact that in 2001 we started producing Milka chocolate in Trostianets. At the time only two factories in Europe produced chocolate under this trade mark.” In the ten years since the company’s creation it has produced an astounding 100,000 tons of chocolate, or one billion chocolate bars.
“This is Ukraine’s first chocolate festival, and it is obviously up to the leader in the domestic market to start this tradition,” says Sviatoslav Komakha, the company’s candy marketing manager. “Korona is our compatriots’ favorite chocolate. On the occasion of the brand’s tenth anniversary we organized this feast for all chocolate lovers. We hope that in a few years it will grow to match the one in Perugia.”
The festival’s opening ceremony took place on Jan. 20 in a circle of colleagues, partners, and friends. The same day saw the presentation of the world’s largest chocolate bar weighing three tons and measuring four meters long and two meters wide. It immediately entered the Book of Records of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the biggest chocolate bar in the Guinness Book of Records weighs only 2,280 kilograms. What is there to say? The chocolate creation’s impressive size beckons: it’s not every day that you get to view a similar masterpiece with a claim to international fame. According to Komakha, it took 14 hours to assemble and an entire month to prepare. “What makes this bar unique is that it is handmade. In creating the chocolate bar, specialists at the Trostianets factory used methods that the Aztecs and Mayas — the first people to use cocoa beans — used to build their temples and pyramids. The bar consists of over 100 chocolate monoliths molded together with hot chocolate.”
It looks as though it would have made a monumental sculpture. Chocolate sculptures were unveiled by artists Oleksandr Volosenko and Volodymyr Kuznietsov. Normally they work with gypsum, stone, wood, and even ice. This was their first experience with chocolate. They used 40-kilogram blocks of chocolate to sculpt a crown, cocoa bean, nude female torso (the traditional inspiration for male artist), and an Indian chieftain. They admit it was no simple task, as the material is fragile. Still, they prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate, as it is more consistent. From them I learned that sculptures can be colored by adding food-grade dyes. Perhaps I should recommend this art form to my aunt, the famous sculptor Khrystyna Kachaluba of Switzerland, where such festivals must take place.
Next to this improvised studio is a boutique with a variety of candies shaped like chess pieces, medallions, horseshoes, and hearts, which I secretly choose. In my mind’s eye I picture a porcelain jewelry box tied with a bright ribbon. Wouldn’t this make a nice gift? “Have you decided on the hearts? I like them too,” says Yulia Mishchenko, the lead singer of the band Talita Kum, reading my mind. No matter what they say, we women are all alike in some ways. “Korona has initiated a very positive festival,” says Yulia. “I learned lots of new things about the history of chocolate, even though this has long been one of my interests.” In fact, chocolate lore could be enriched at a nearby installation, where visitors were learning the ABCs of chocolate making in the form of an interactive computer game. It starts with the story of the cocoa tree, which grows for three to five years before blooms for the first time, and ends with the words: “Now we temper the chocolate mass to give it a delicate flavor and then pour it into molds.” The game provides a full account of the chocolate production cycle. On the opposite side of the showroom visitors could instantly test their newly-acquired knowledge. A computerized machine designed to resemble ancient Aztec stone monuments asked questions, like “How many times a year are cocoa bean trees harvested?”
At a nearby window display of hot chocolate I join the athlete Stella Zakharova. In conversation with her I learn that Korona was among the sponsors of her rhythmic sport gymnastics tournament. I immediately recall that not long ago this company sponsored Viktor Petrenko’s ice show in Kyiv, “We Are the Champions,” which featured various generations of Olympic figure skating champions. The management of Kraft Foods Ukraine always stresses that as a national producer the company feels an obligation to Ukrainian society, which is why it often sponsors interesting events. The Empire of Cinematography program on 1 + 1 Television was the first to dub foreign movies into Ukrainian on Korona’s initiative. The company also sponsored the Gold Crown International Opera Festival in Odesa and held the Crowning of the Word literary competition for the sixth consecutive year. Serhiy Arkhypchuk, the mastermind behind the Crowning of the Word and the Gold Crown events, noted: “The atmosphere here is incredible! During these freezing cold days the fiery Latin American dances are especially exciting to watch, in particular the passionate tango, international all-time hits performed by a mini-orchestra, and, of course, the chocolate with an emphasis on its origins. I am certain that many events with Korona’s involvement reflect the management’s priorities and the company’s philosophy in general. We have a lot people telling everybody how things should be done, but very often their talk is useless. The efficient businessmen of Kraft Foods Ukraine are an alternative to them.”
I ran into the popular Ukrainian fashion designer Lilia Pustovit just as she was making a difficult choice: chocolate with almonds, hazelnuts, raisins, wafer bits, or candied fruit? She had to decide quickly, as there were many people who were keen to create their small chocolate artworks. Who knows, maybe this will become a source of interesting, new recipes for Korona? “I’m inspired by the visitors’ happy mood,” says Lilia. “They are filled with nice and even blissful emotions. Perhaps chocolate does have magical properties, which means that I am not ruling it out as an element in my works. I am working on my winter-fall 2006-2007 collection, which will be dominated by chocolate and maroon colors. I’m on the lookout for everything that will match this range.”
In order to convey the atmosphere of this fairytale event to readers across Ukraine in a more sensitive and credible way, the organizers announced a journalism contest for the best publication. The jury includes Maksym Rylsky, chairman of the board of the all- Ukrainian press club center “Ukraina Forum,” National Union of Journalists chairman Ihor Lubchenko, 1+1 Television’s general producer Valeriy Oseledchyk, and others. Four authors of the most original articles will win a trip to Cologne for an international exhibition of chocolate products this May, and others will receive consolation prizes. We all know how generous Korona’s consolation prizes can be.
The festival in Kyiv drew many people: couples, families, and groups. Everybody tried to create their own chocolate. After all, where else would they get a similar opportunity? Book lovers bought books by Crowning of the Word winners from past years. Young people converged mostly on the boutique, as St. Valentine’s Day is just weeks away. Little children demanded to be carried by their parents so that they would not forget to buy some of their favorite sweets. I was moved by one particular scene, which felt like a memory from my own childhood. A girl of about five years old was following in her mother’s footsteps, eating chocolate greedily and stuffing more into her pockets for later. She was probably thinking: ‘What if the grownups change their mind and tell me I can’t have any chocolate before supper?’
The first Korona Chocolate Festival was joyous and full of life. It radiated an aura of wellbeing, sharpening one’s sense of style and, obviously, good taste.
