Coffee Roaster Mini-Sculpture

Lviv has built a tourist industry on being Ukraine's coffee capital, and Uzhhorod has never once conceded the point. In July 2018 it made its counter-argument in bronze: a palm-sized roasting machine, fixed in place on Ploshcha Yevhena Fentsyka, dedicated to the first coffee roaster the city ever ran.

Cities that decide to honour coffee usually build a cup. Uzhhorod built the equipment. The drum is where a green bean turns brown and everything the cup will eventually taste of gets settled, and choosing to commemorate the tool rather than the drink tells you how technical this town's affection actually is.

The case Uzhhorod makes

The habit came in from Central Europe and never left. Well into the twentieth century households here roasted their own beans in a cast-iron pan on the stove, ground them and brewed them strong — a domestic skill rather than a trade, and one the city still performs competitively. Uzhhorod has held a championship for roasting coffee in a frying pan.

The modern argument is statistical. Organisers of the city's coffee festival maintain that counted per head of population, Uzhhorod has more cafés than Lviv, and better coffee in them. The title is unofficial and the contest unwinnable. It is also hard to dismiss out of hand if you spend a morning walking the few blocks between Fentsyka and the river.

A monument to a machine

The sculptor is Andriy Voznytskyy, which makes this one of the miniatures that is not a Kolodko. His roaster is small, dark and deliberately unglamorous, cast as a working drum rather than a symbol, and it sits at pavement level in a square lined with places that will sell you the finished product — a roastery trades at the same address, number 13.

It belongs to the drift of palm-sized bronzes Uzhhorod has been bolting to railings, walls and kerbs since 2010 — more than fifty in the centre, over a hundred across Zakarpattia, nearly all of the city ones within a few blocks of the Uzh. Most of them tell you about a person. This one tells you about a habit.

Finding it

Fentsyka Square sits in the middle of town, a short walk from the pedestrian bridge, and the roaster turns up easily enough once you stop searching at eye level. People use it as a meeting point, which is the most useful thing a small bronze can become.

Then do the obvious thing. Order a coffee within fifty metres of it and drink it sitting down, unhurried, the way the city intends — a takeaway cup here is a wasted opportunity.