Galati County Council

- Romania -

Vilkovo City Council

- Ukraine -

Cantemir District Council

- Moldova -

Self Government City Of Kutaisi

- Georgia -

Constanta County Council

- Romania -

Vilkovo is a small city in the former Kiliya district of the Odessa region, located in the Ukrainian part of the Danube Delta on the border with Romania. It is the administrative center of the Danube Biosphere Reserve - one of the four main nature reserves of Ukraine, whose territory’s which is included in all possible registers of the world's most valuable landscapes. The modern name of the settlement is connected with the nature of the Danube riverbed in this place - here the Kiliya estuary forms a triple branch into three arms, similar to a "fork". Due to numerous canals ("yerics") dug along the streets, this city is also known as "Ukrainian Venice".

Vilkovo was founded in 1746, as Posad Lipovansky by a religious group of Believers (Lipovan), who settled in Dobrudja, the Principality of Moldova and eastern Wolloschina, hiding from official persecution by the Russian Church after the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. Later, the Zaporozhian Cossacks appeared here, as well as other ethnic communities - Moldovans, Romanians, Gagauzians, Bulgarians, Albanians.

Historically, an island way of life was formed here for a long time, with folk crafts, unique types of farming, and gastronomic traditions typical only of this area. The special charm of the city is added by the symbiosis of multinational folklore and cultural heritage, language dialects, features of the religious worldview, as well as the atmosphere of tolerance and harmony.

The geographical position of Vilkovo has long determined the main area of employment of its population - fishing. The main commercial fish in Vilkovo is the Azov-Black Sea herring (local name "Dunayka”) which enters the Danube to spawn from the second half of March to the end of July. Danube herring is depicted on the official coat of arms of the city and is considered its gastronomic souvenir.

Vilkovo is known for its ecologically friendly strawberries, which are grown on the islands of the Danube Delta. The unique combination of favorable climate (soft and humid), fertile soil and large reserves of fresh water allow you to cultivate early Dutch varieties of strawberries without adding the chemical fertilizers. Vilkove is the only place in the world where you can taste a special variety of wine "Novak" (linked the word "new"), which is made by a special technology tested for several generations. According to legend, the seedlings of the vine "noah" were brought to this region by merchants from the shores of the Amazon and gradually adapted to local climatic conditions.

Taking into account the facts listed above, we can say that the city of Vilkovo has all the necessary potential to become a center of gastronomic tourism in southern Ukraine. The polyethnic environment of the region has historically formed a harmonious synthesis of culinary traditions, where you can taste Moldovan mamaliga, Bulgarian kurban, Lipovan sturgeon and chicken soup, frog legs according to the original recipe and many other local dishes. Each of them contains the culinary code of an individual nation - the central concept of everyday life, closely related to customs, mentality, identity, family hospitality, religious consciousness, etiquette and other ethnogenetic categories.

Project results - Vilkovo City Council