You're reading: World in Ukraine: Kyiv’s Japanese cultural center opens world of Land of the Rising Sun

The Ukraine-Japan Center is a meeting place where Japanese culture and language is part of a pleasant routine.

Housed in Kyiv’s Polytechnic Institute, the center was founded as a subdivision of the institute in 2004, but is fully funded by the Japanese government and Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Yurii Kushnarov, a former employee of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, spent five years in Japan before becoming the head of the center in Ukraine. “Our traditional culture enjoys tremendous demand,” he said, referring to himself as a Japanese.

Cooperation between Ukraine and Japan deepened after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. Given Ukraine’s experience with the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear accident, help was offered to Japan. “Our experts are ready to share even their negative experience in resettlement and the conflagration area,” Kushnarov said of how the bilateral exchange of experts started.

Japan also signed an agreement with Belarus to assist in cleaning areas affected by the nuclear fallout. “Neither the Japanese nor we do not know what to do with the (nuclear) fuel that was burned,” he said.

But language study is the leading feature at the Japanese cultural center. All language levels, from novice to advanced, are taught by Japanese or Ukrainians tutors, who have the highest N1 proficiency level.

A yearly tuition of Hr 3,600 for the course includes textbooks, printed materials and access to a library of 15,000 books, magazines, video and audio disks. Kushnarov rejoiced this year when the center received a record number of applications, eventually enrolling 305. “We could have more, but our rooms were not able to accommodate all of them,” he said. Groups for children aged 7-13 years and Japanese kids are also available at the center.

The Kyiv Polytechnic Institute has also benefited from the center’s presence by having established ten exchange programs so far with Kyoto, Tsukuba and other Japanese technical universities.

Plenty of other options exist for Japanese cultural immersion. A certified sensei teaches the art of ikebana, the arrangement of flowers in a variety of settings. The teacher teaches oshibana, the art of composing a painting made from dried flowers and plants grown in a botanical garden.

At the center’s calligraphy courses one can learn to artistically write hieroglyphs, and learn the ink-wash painting sumi-e. For those, who love traditional garments, the center demonstrates how to dress in formal kimono and casual wear – a yukata. Music enthusiasts are shown how to play the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo end-blown flute.

Perhaps the most traditional area of the center is the tea ceremony room. The wood-paneled room was made in Japan and then transported to Ukraine, but wasn’t fixed permanently in place and can be transported to other places. Visitors here are given a course on how to properly prepare and present Japanese powdered green matcha tea.

Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliana Romanyshyn can be reached at [email protected]