Naverny Borshchu

Naverny Borshchu is a web application and interactive map devoted to Ukrainian borshch. It gathers bowls of borshch served in Ukraine into a single place so that anyone can find a spot, see how its borshch was rated, and contribute a discovery of their own. The project describes itself as 'the map of Ukraine's best borshch' and as 'a web app for borshch lovers', with the goal of helping people 'find your perfect Borshch'. According to its Product Hunt listing, the map holds 278 bowls across 31 cities, 103 of which are already rated by people who actually ate them, while the other 175 still carry no score. The website states that more than 100 bowls of borshch have been tasted and that over 800 borshch lovers are on board. Eating borshch is a deeply rooted Ukrainian tradition, and opinions about which bowl is best are as strong as they are personal. Traditionally, those opinions live in conversations, social posts and word of mouth, which makes them hard to compare or to use when choosing where to eat. Naverny Borshchu answers that by putting borshch on a shared map and giving every bowl the same set of criteria, so ratings from different people in different cities can sit side by side. The team states its mission as bringing people together around a love of borshch and keeping the culture of tasting it alive in places all over the world. It shares stories, flavors and discoveries - from well-known restaurants to hidden spots where great borshch turns up when you least expect it - and describes the project as building a place where borshch stirs a real feeling of being Ukrainian. The core of the product is an interactive map of borshch across Ukraine. From the 'Find borshch' button on the homepage, visitors open the map and look for bowls by location, including a 'Find borshch near me' call to action. Each entry is tied to a place where the borshch is served, so the map doubles as a discovery tool for a single city or for a trip across the country. Entries also carry a meat type: chicken, pork, veal, meat-free or other. That filter matters because borshch is cooked differently from kitchen to kitchen, and a guest who wants a meat-free bowl or a rich veal broth can narrow the map to the options that suit them. The interface shows a rating alongside each bowl, with scores such as 8.5 or 4.5 visible in the previews. Naverny Borshchu rates every bowl on seven criteria rather than a single vague star score. The first is meatiness - how much meat there is and how well it is cooked. The second is beetiness - how clearly the beet comes through in amount, color and aroma. The third is saltiness - how well the salt is balanced, neither bland nor oversalted. The fourth is thickness - how rich and hearty the borshch is, 'the spoon stands up', or thinner. The fifth is aftertaste - whether a pleasant and full-bodied taste lingers after the tasting. The sixth is presentation - whether it looks appetizing and neat, and what comes on the side. The seventh is overall - how much the taster liked the borshch as a whole. Because the same seven questions are asked about every bowl, the resulting ratings are comparable across cities and restaurants, and the overview shows values such as 7/10 for meatiness. Beyond finding and rating, Naverny Borshchu invites people to add borshch that is not on the map yet: 'Discover new borshch and put them on the map.' This is where the discoverer mechanic comes in. Of the 278 bowls listed, 103 already have a score and 175 still have no score, and the team explains that whoever tastes one of those unrated bowls first stays on it as its discoverer. That gives early tasters a visible role in building the map rather than only consuming it. A separate section, the Borshch Index, puts price into the picture. For Kyiv it shows 202 UAH per serving and 56.1 UAH per 100 g, expressed as x10.2 versus a homemade pot. The index gives a way to judge value alongside taste, comparing what a restaurant bowl costs with the cost of cooking borshch at home. The site sums the workflow up in three steps: Find, Add, Rate. Find means locating borshch across Ukraine on an interactive map. Add means discovering new borshch and putting those places on the map. Rate means scoring a bowl against the seven criteria and sharing what you found. Those three actions describe the whole loop the product is built around: a visitor opens the map, picks a spot, eats the borshch, and then returns a rating that helps the next person decide. Because unrated bowls outnumber rated ones, the loop is still open - every new tasting either adds a score to an existing place or introduces a place that was not on the map before. The practical benefit is a single, consistent source of answers to a common question: where should I eat borshch? Instead of collecting scattered opinions, a user sees scores built from the same seven criteria and can weigh meatiness, beetiness, saltiness, thickness, aftertaste, presentation and overall liking for themselves. Ratings come from people who actually ate the bowl, as the project states, which ties the score to first-hand experience. The map format makes the answer geographic as well as qualitative, so it works whether someone is choosing between two places in their own neighborhood or planning where to eat while traveling. Price information from the Borshch Index adds a second dimension, letting a diner balance taste against cost per serving or per 100 g. The discoverer mechanic gives contributors a reason to be early. Several concrete scenarios follow from how the product is described. A person in Kyiv can open the map, filter by meat type and pick a nearby place whose borshch scored well on the criteria they care about. A traveler moving between Ukrainian cities can use the map to see which of the 31 cities covered have bowls listed and what those bowls were rated. Someone who has just eaten a bowl can rate it on the seven criteria and share the result, adding a score where there was none. A taster who finds borshch in a place that is not yet listed can add it and become its discoverer. A cost-conscious diner can consult the Borshch Index for Kyiv, which shows 202 UAH per serving and 56.1 UAH per 100 g against the price of a homemade pot. Members of the community can also follow the project's Instagram account to see stories, flavors and discoveries from the team and other tasters. Naverny Borshchu is aimed at people who love borshch and at anyone looking for a good bowl in Ukraine, whether locals or visitors. It is free to use, and the team states plainly that it is open source, with no ads and no affiliate links, so listings are not paid placements. It runs as a web app reached through the website and its map subdomain, with a mobile-friendly interface. The project is run by a named team of stakeholders, project and compliance managers, backend and frontend developers, and designers, and it is reachable by email and through LinkedIn and Instagram. It launched on Product Hunt on 13 September, where it gathered 18 votes and 15 comments. Beyond the product itself, the site collects Instagram posts from the community, positioning the map as part of a wider conversation about borshch. In short, Naverny Borshchu turns a famously opinionated food into structured, comparable data on a map. It lets anyone find borshch across Ukraine, add places that were missing, and rate bowls on seven clearly defined criteria, while the Borshch Index adds price context and the discoverer rule rewards early tasters. Free, open source and free of ads or affiliate links, it is a community project with a cultural mission: to bring people together around a love of borshch and keep the culture of tasting it alive in places all over the world.