‘When you’re Ukrainian, you never leave Ukraine’
Paska: Ukrainian Easter bread highlights tradition, Easter story as war continues
The warmth of the kitchen is comforting and inviting as Oksana Kushnir walks back and forth between a large steel table and the oven while baking paska, which is Ukrainian Easter bread.
Kushnir and her husband the Rev. Volodymyr Kushnir of St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church in Munster both see a parallel between the Easter story and Ukraine and the importance of maintaining tradition as their home country lives through a war with Russia.
“(Easter) is a victory of life over death. We feel there will be victory in Ukraine over war,” Rev. Kushnir said. “It’s important to show others our deep roots and traditions. It’s important for our kids to see where they come from.”
The air inside the church’s kitchen on a recent day smells of flour, eggs and dough, and wraps around anyone in the room like a hug from grandmother.
The cabinets, made of wood with black handles, give the essence of home, but the steel, industrial-looking sink, oven, refrigerator and mixer indicate the kitchen is used to cook large quantities of food.
Kushnir, 39, walks between a table and the counter near the oven, where she breaks eggs and mixes flour for the dough.
The bread starter — made of fresh yeast, milk, sugar and flour — is ready in a nearby bowl.
After she mixes the dough and the starter together, it needs an hour to rise, she said.
That gives her enough time to make the decorations for the bread, which means taking cookie cutters to create shapes — flowers, leaves and crosses, for example — out of dough and using a small knife to add detail to the shape.
“When I made this with my grandmother, we didn’t have these cookie cutters. We did this with our hands,” Kushnir said.
Kushnir and her husband are both from Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine, she said. The couple married in Ukraine and their daughter was born there.
Her husband came to America first, Kushnir said, and she was initially hesitant to leave Ukraine. But, he convinced her to come to the U.S., “which I’m glad I did,”
Kushnir said. She was able to find a job as a doctor, which is what she studied in Ukraine, and their son was born in the U.S.
Kushnir, wearing an apron with medical symbols, said she has wanted to be a doctor for as long as she can remember. When she was young, she remembers pretending to be a doctor for her grandfather.
“I don’t know how he had the patience for me,” Kushnir said.
Her family still lives in Ivano-Frankivsh, she said.
Since the war started, Kushnir’s sister and niece have gone to Poland, but her parents and brother-in-law are still there.
She talks to her family almost daily, Kushnir said, and the conversation focuses on the war, her parents’ health and her children.
“They are safe, but they are not OK,” Kushnir said. “You’re just trying to listen, first of all, what they say. And also praying,”
Given that her family is in the western part of Ukraine, which hasn’t seen as much destruction as the eastern part of the country, Kushnir said they have been planning Easter celebrations like baking paska.
Paska is baked a little differently throughout regions of the country, Kushnir said, like sweet or unsweet bread or with or without raisins. Following tradition of the western part of Ukraine, Kushnir and others bake the bread sweet with raisins for the church, she said.
The process of baking paska in Ukraine is filled with superstitious traditions commonly given to European customs. While paska is being made and baking, there can’t be any arguments or yelling, Kushnir said, so that the atmosphere around the paska is positive.
When she was younger, Kushnir remembers that the first bucket of water pulled from the well on the morning of baking was put aside to be used for the paska.
Or, she recalls how her grandmother would save the water that rinsed out bowls used to make paska. Then, her grandmother would take that water and wash Kushnir’s face with it saying “so you will be as beautiful as paska.”
“I never told my daughter that. I should try and see how she reacts,” Kushnir said, with a light laugh.
After the dough rises, Kushnir pulls pieces of the dough, shapes it in her hands, and puts it in round tins covered in parchment paper to prevent sticking. Then, she places decorations on top of the dough and lightly rubs whipped egg over the decorations and dough.
The bread needs another hour to bake.
This is the second Easter season at St. Josaphat that Kushnir has helped with baking paska. In previous years at other churches, Kushnir said she would help with making the decorations for the bread.
Last year, the first day of baking did not go well, she said.
But the next baking session went much better, Kushnir said, and that night she had a dream of her grandmother — who died in 2019 — smiling at her standing near a table filled with paskas.
“It was so nice,” Kushnir said. “I feel like she’s proud of me.”
By Thursday, Kushnir said she and other women will have baked about 120 paskas to sell at the church bazaar. They came Thursday to bake 30 more smaller paskas for the volunteers helping with the bazaar.
Being able to bake paska this year means more, Kushnir said, because the tradition connects her with her country as it lives through a war.
“It’s important to have those traditions, to know who you are and to pass it to your children,” Kushnir said. “When you’re Ukrainian, you never leave Ukraine. You still think about Ukraine.”
While parishioners and community members are finding ways to help and support Ukraine, whether that’s donating money or attending rallies, Kushnir said she’s helping by cooking at the church and keeping the tradition alive.
“You have to do what you can do in this moment,” Kushnir said. “We have to continue, even more. (Tradition) is what identifies us.”
If she were living in Ukraine right now, Kushnir said it is very likely she would be working at a hospital. Doctors in Ukraine sign a government form that states if there is a large-scale medical need, such as during war, he or she will be called on to help citizens.
“If I would be called, I would go,” Kushnir said, without hesitation.
The recent news and pictures of civilians bound and shot, lying across roads, in Bucha is a tragedy, but given the photos of death and destruction in Mariupol over the last few weeks and Ukraine’s history it feels less shocking somehow, Kushnir said.
For example, Ukraine experienced Holodomor, Kushnir said, during which millions of Ukrainians died. Holodomor is the Ukrainian famine from 1932-1933 where the former premier of the Soviet Union Josef Stalin forced Ukrainians to starve as Ukrainian farmers resisted Stalin’s plan to create state-run collectives on their farms.
“(What happened in Bucha) is a tragedy. It is heartbreaking. But it’s nothing new. It’s our history,” Kushnir said.
The war started as the season of lent started, Kushnir said, though the church gives a dispensation for lent, a time of fasting, during times of war.
“(Ukrainians) are already fasting from everything,” Kushnir said.
As Easter celebrates and honors the death and resurrection of Jesus, Kushnir hopes for a resurrection — and ultimate victory — for Ukraine.
“We just believe in resurrection for our country. Right now, (Ukraine) is literally undergoing crucifixion. But, after crucifixion is death and then resurrection,” Kushnir said. “At the end, good always wins over darkness.”
Kushnir puts the last of the paska for the volunteers in the oven. Closing the oven, she just has to wait for the paska to bake and she’s done with baking for the year.
She said she gives herself an eight on a scale of one to 10 on her baking ability.
There could’ve been less cracking in the bread and more glazing, Kushnir said.
Kushnir laughs thinking about how her grandmother would rate her baking, admitting that as the first granddaughter and having lived with her grandmother the first 5 years of her life means she’s the favorite.
“She would say it’s delicious,” Kushnir said. “No matter how it tasted.”