Career guidance in the Shevchenko region

A few weeks ago, the Institute of Postgraduate Education and the Department of Agricultural Consulting and Tourism completed a training course for agricultural advisers and expert advisers. The students are experienced people – civil servants, agricultural workers, entrepreneurs, farmers and businessmen, mostly from the central and southern regions of Ukraine. A grateful listener and advisor, Pavlo Popovych, Head of the Agro-Industrial Development Department of the Horodyshche District State Administration, invited the departments to conduct career guidance and learn about the highlights of his wonderful region.

The Head of the Department, Professor Tetiana Kalna-Dubiniuk and Associate Professor Olena Lokutova gladly accepted the invitation and visited Horodyshche, where they conducted career guidance work among the directors of local schools, museums, teachers of the College of Horticulture, met with interesting people who develop the tourism industry of the Shevchenko region, introducing them to the Master’s programme ‘Extension’ and the Bachelor’s programme ‘Tourism’.

The programme prepared for the guests in the Cherkasy region was quite intense:

● a guided tour of the Institute of Pomology named after L.P. Semyrenko Institute of Pomology of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine and the museum-estate of this prominent family with an old park (Mliiv). The museum’s exposition tells about the glorious past of the Institute, which was the most powerful centre of Soviet horticultural science;

● visit to the Engelhardt family estate with a park and thousand-year-old oaks, in the hollows of which little Taras Shevchenko hid his first poems;

● visit to the National Historical and Cultural Reserve ‘Taras Shevchenko’s Homeland’ in the village of Shevchenkove, Zvenyhorod district, Cherkasy region, where the grave of the poet’s mother, Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko, is located;

● a professional tour of the estate-museum in the village of Morintsy, the house where the famous poet was born. Next to the poet’s first home is the house of his maternal grandfather Yakym Boyko and the dyak’s house.

Stanilav Surzhko, a well-known connoisseur of his region, told the history of the museum. The restoration of the complex was completed in 1989. The basis for this was the drawings and description of Taras Shevchenko himself. During the construction work, the technology of that time was followed, all the features of rural architecture of the early 19th century were taken into account. The interior of all buildings is as close as possible to the family’s life. There is a chapel on the territory of the complex. Not far from the estate-museum there is a ravine with fruit trees, where Shevchenko often walked. There is also a monument to Kateryna Boyko with her son in her arms.

There were a lot of impressions, but ahead of them was a wonderful rural green tourism estate ‘Kobzar’s Cradle’, which has a categorisation mark of the Union for the Promotion of Rural Green Tourism in Ukraine. Vira Chepurna, the owner of the farmstead, treated her guests to a traditional Ukrainian dinner with freshly baked bread and unrivalled pickles.

In the morning, after a delicious home-cooked breakfast, the hostess gave us a tour of her manor house, the rooms of which are decorated with traditional Ukrainian embroidery, paintings, works of local craftsmen and are associated with the name of the famous poet and artist. The cleanliness and tidiness of both the house and the large garden, which is in full bloom and has swings and haylofts, barbecues and tennis tables, gazebos and cosy corners for privacy, was impressive. Nearby, within a five-minute walk, there are picturesque lakes with clear spring water, where Shevchenko spent his childhood.

The cosy homestead of Ms Vira, a member of the Union for the Promotion of Rural Green Tourism in Ukraine, attracts tourists from all over the world, as you can see by looking through thick books of reviews and looking at maps of the world and Ukraine, which show the places where the guests came from. Over the 10 years of the farmhouse’s existence, there have been more than 3,000 of them.

So, returning home, pleasantly surprised by the sincere welcome and what they saw in the Shevchenko region, the guests from NULES of Ukraine want to once again thank the organiser of the career guidance tour, expert adviser Pavlo Popovych, for the fruitful cooperation and wish them good health and success in developing tourism in Cherkasy region, because the unsurpassed region has everything you need to develop tourism, including rural green tourism.

Associate Professor of Agricultural Consulting and Tourism Olena Lokutova