Are you Ukrainian? Culture Test

You know your Ukrainian .. (or straight off the boat) when..

You know that there are three main Orthodox Churches (Ukrainian, Greek, Orthodox) and two Catholic Churches. You’re not sure about the real differences between them. Your ancestors went to whichever church happened to be closer to their home. That is unless they were from the Crimean Tatar, in which case you’re Muslim. Most likely, you regard Protestants with suspicion.

You have a close family member that likes pork fat. Salted, smoked, peppered or spiced. No, they seriously like pork fat. They know that the Russians make fun of them because of this, but they still like pork fat.

In most cases you eat at home. Your wife/sister/mother is probably a good cook. Not as good as your granny, though. You are convinced that Russians can’t cook.

You can take pride in being probably the only country in the world that has a word for vodka other than ‘vodka’-- you call it horilka. Naturally, Ukrainian horilka is the best vodka in the world.

You think Russians are thieves and drunkards, Jews greedy, Poles snobbish, Byelorussians inferior, and you tell jokes about Moldavians. At the same time, you have acquaintances, friends, or even relatives from these nationalities.

You can’t seriously expect to be able to transact business, or deal with officials, without paying bribes. Having friends in the right places or drinking with the right people would help enormously. (Ok this is deffinitly for immigrants - but really true..)

You still argue with Russians over the heritage of Kievan Rus. They claim it’s theirs or shared, whilst you claim it’s exclusively yours. (DAMN IT! TO NASH!)

If the Russians want to piss you off, they call you Polonised Russians, whilst you know that Russians are not even a Slavic nation at all, they are savage Finns from the northern forests.

Your country has been conquered by wave after wave of invaders throughout its history. Tatars, Lithuanians, Poles, Hungarians, Nomadic Eastern Tribes, Austrians, Swedes, Turks, Russians, Germans-- they’ve all been here.

All your neighbours (with the potential exception of Byelorussians) think they’re entitled to some or even all of your territory. At the same time, you may think that some of Russia, some of Poland and all of Byelorussia should be annexed to Ukraine.

You can take rightful pride in your Cossack past and the heroic struggles against the Turks and Tatars. Plundering Moldavia on a regular basis was far less heroic and therefore less known.

You’re still not sure whether Ivan Mazepa was a traitor or the greatest Ukrainian patriot of all time. Same story with Bogdan Khmelnitsky.

You haven’t seen a Ukrainian movie in a very long time. If you have, then you haven’t seen a decent Ukrainian movie in a very long time.

Generations of your ancestors fought for independence and were always defeated. Your generation did not really fight for independence yet won it.