Olga Pinevich-Todoriuk is the editor-in-chief of Drinks+, the leading Ukrainian wine and spirits magazine. She is also the initiator of the project the International Wine Travel Awards.
Olga and all her collaborators are still in Ukraine, although perhaps no longer in Kyiv. At least, that was the situation the last time I heard from her.
Here’s a message from her about the current situation, about the Drinks+ magazine and about the Wine Tourism Awards.
A few excerpts:
“The new and latest edition of the Drinks+ magazine was ready to be published on the 25th of February, like we have been doing for the past 30 years, as the leading wine media in Ukraine and one of the oldest wine media groups in East Europe. But this time we did not publish for the reasons we all know.”
“Everyone understands that we cannot continue for now our Ukrainian project – Ukrainian magazine Drinks+, but our global project – the Wine Travel Awards needs to be continued.”
Read more below on how you can support them.
Dear friends and partners,
In the last 12 days we have been receiving messages from all over the world with words of support. We really appreciate that so many of you show your support to our team, to our country and our people. Many of you asked how you can help and we would like to address it.
The new and latest edition of the Drinks+ magazine was ready to be published on the 25th of February, like we have been doing for the past 30 years, as the leading wine media in Ukraine and one of the oldest wine media groups in East Europe. But this time we did not publish for the reasons we all know.
Just before those unthinkable events our team was preparing an interview with Robert Joseph for this edition and we were asking him to visit the event that we were planning in Kyiv. But that celebration will not happen for the reasons we all know.
In 2021, as a reaction to the coronavirus crisis, the Communication Media Group Drinks+ decided to create a new global project dedicated to wine tourism – the Wine Travel Awards. Even though this is just the first year of the project and a startup spin-off, since the first days of existence we were able to attract to the project the leading experts from 30 different countries in the field of wine and wine tourism as participants, partners and sponsors.
The Wine Travel Awards project was born in Kyiv, Ukraine and 70% of our collaborators are Ukrainians. And all of them are still in Ukraine right now.
Everyone understands that we cannot continue for now our Ukrainian project – Ukrainian magazine Drinks+, but our global project – the Wine Travel Awards needs to be continued.
We not only have the obligation to deliver our promises and commitments to our partners, but we also have the duty to keep going as we are committed to support all of our team, all of our journalists, reporters, editors and project and marketing managers who work with Drinks+ from Ukraine to the world.
We want to be sure that our co-workers and friends that are still in Kyiv can still have a source of income and the WTA project is committed to assure that people in Ukraine still receive their salaries.
We have decided to address this message to you as representatives of the media and influencers in the industry to support us in this moment.
We are not asking for donations, there are charity funds doing that and better suited than us (f.e. please check: https://www.today.com/news/news/5-verified-charities-working-help-ukrainians-invasion-rcna17590).
What we ask for is to support the word of mouth around the WTA project to keep it alive and make it persist despite the situation. We are searching for collaborations with informational partners, exhibition partners, bloggers, influencers, educational partners, sponsors and so on.
P.S. We wish to emphasize that many decent wine projects and businesses from Ukraine joined the WTA community. You can find them at our official website winetravelawards.com. Now it would be quite problematic for these nominees and their supporters to participate in full force in the voting process. We encourage you and your friends to support candidates from Ukraine and vote also for them!
Please find the details of the project in the WTA Presentation https://winetravelawards.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/wta-presentation-2021-2022.pdf , Sponsorship Opportunities presentation https://we.tl/t-r9XT6t4NZT and feel free to share it with your media partners or anyone you might think that could be interested.
Any suggestions on cooperation please contact me:
Olga Pinevich-Todoriuk
+380979148428 (WhatsApp | Telegram | Viber)
Or our team members:
veronica.busel@gmail.com or partnership@winetravelawards.com
+351 930 617 799 (WhatsApp | Telegram | Viber)
+38 (067) 447 45 78 (WhatsApp | Telegram | Viber)
Thank you very much!
The image below and heading this page is, of course, a drip irrigation tube. But I will let that symbolise two things:
The tears that we are now shedding for the people of Ukraine and for their country. THEIR country.
But also:
Let it symbolise future growth. That in the end some good things will start to grow from what is today only brutal atrocities and a human catastrophe.
