Black Stalin-style Flatbreads

How did they survive? They survived however they could. Whatever they could hide somewhere, that was how they managed to endure. “Hide” meaning keep it from the authorities.

For example, they buried grain in the ground, but people came who searched for the grain. They had sharp rods they used to check where the grain might be hidden. If they found it buried or stashed away—they took everything. And along with the grain, they took the farmer who had hidden it. They beat them, locked them up. During the summer, they took everything. If someone managed to keep something, they ground the grain in hand mills. But those who took the grain also smashed the mills. People hid the mills so the communists, the Soviets, wouldn’t find and destroy them. My mother used to go to the neighbors to grind grain. That’s how they survived. And what did they cook?

During the famine, there were no potatoes. People really missed them. Let me show you! Before the famine, there were great harvests. The state farms (PGR) organized a system where they buried potatoes in the ground or in pits to store them for the winter.

– Granddaughter: “But grandma, that potato is going to smell awful when you cut it open.”

– Luba replied: But that’s exactly what we ate. Smelly and rotten potatoes. The state farms had buried these potatoes. During the famine, people remembered that some of the potatoes were still in the ground. They dug them up—rotten ones. Whoever could, took as much as they could home. They smelled terrible. Tasted terrible. But people took what they could from those pits. From those potatoes, they baked flatbreads (bliny). Black and awful. That’s what we ate under Stalin.

*From conversations with Luba Lubov Dmytrivna / Khmelnytskyi Oblast / Ukraine

Recipe for flatbreads from the famine times, inspired by Mrs. Luba’s story

INGREDIENTS:

• – Rotten potatoes (as many as you can find)
• A pinch of salt (if available)
• A bit of water

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Prepare the potatoes: Find the rotten potatoes buried in the ground. Clean them of the worst dirt, even though they will smell terrible. Peel them if possible and mash them into a paste.

2. Dough: Add a bit of water and a pinch of salt to the mashed potatoes, if available. Knead them into a thick dough that can be shaped into small flatbreads.

3. Frying: On a heated pan, without any oil or with a minimal amount, fry the flatbreads. Cook them on both sides until they turn dark, almost black, as was typical in those times due to the lack of oil and the poor quality of ingredients.

4. Serving: The flatbreads will have a very strong, unpleasant smell and taste, but they were the only way to fill the stomach during the famine.

HOLODOMOR

The Ukrainian word Holodomor signifies death by starvation and refers to the tragic events that unfolded in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic between 1932 and 1933, following the Soviet authorities’ imposition of forced collectivization. This process was accompanied by a ruthless obligation to deliver unpaid quotas of agricultural products, set at levels far beyond what the rural population could produce.

As grain stocks in the granaries dwindled, peasants tried to hide what little they had left to survive the winter and save seeds for planting. However, the combined forces of Communist Party activists and the NKVD were so efficient that very little grain could be preserved. Tax collectors, armed with sharpened rods, would go from house to house searching for hidden supplies. If they found anything, they took it along with the household head.

The famine that struck fertile Ukraine was politically engineered. Several million people died of hunger, and there were even reports of cannibalism.

In their desperation, people searched for food in the collective farms’ fields. In response, the authorities issued a decree, commonly known as the “Law of Five Ears of Grain.” Stealing or squandering “socialist property”—even as little as five ears of grain—was punishable by death or ten years in a labor camp. Within a year and a half, over 125,000 people were sentenced under this law.