Summer Life Above the Treeline ── Hutsul Mountain Herding and Brynza

High on the mountains, above where the forest ends, there are places where people, sheep and cattle live only during the summer. In Ukraine’s western Carpathian Mountains, these high pastures have been called polonyna (полонина; plural polonyny). Brynza, a salty cheese made from sheep’s milk, is a food that has been made as part of this summer herding life.

Polonyna, the Pastures Above the Forest

The Great Ukrainian Encyclopedia (VUE) describes polonyna as areas covered with tall-grass meadows found in the upper reaches of the Carpathian Mountains and the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula.

According to the entry “Carpathian Mountains” in the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU, published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta; first published 1984), a belt of high-altitude meadows lies above the forest in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains, home to subalpine (up to 1,750–1,850 m) and alpine plants. It also notes that these meadows expanded as people pushed down the upper limit of the forest, but that overgrazing has reduced the variety of plant species.

The same entry explains that the upper limit of permanent settlement usually coincides with the upper limit for growing grain, exceeding 1,000 m only in the Hutsul region, and states that above this altitude there are seasonal settlements used only in summer — the season for herding sheep and cattle on the distant mountain pastures.

Herding at the Centre of Life in the Hutsul Region

Polonyna herding was most extensive in the southeastern Carpathians, in the region inhabited by the Hutsuls (the Hutsul region). The IEU entry “Hutsul region” (first published 1989) states that herding and animal husbandry have long been the region’s main livelihood, and that this has shaped the form of its settlements.

• Houses are scattered, at high elevations of 1,100–1,600 m (as high as 1,700 m in some cases)
• On the polonyna are groups of herders’ huts and pens (staje), far from the villages
• Winter and summer dwellings (zymivky, litovyshcha) are used according to the season
• Especially on the Galician (Halychyna) side, temporary herders’ settlements have been turning into permanent villages

The same entry states that in the Hutsul region, farmland made up only 4% of the total area, mountain pastures and hayfields 33%, and forest 59%. For centuries, it says, people traded meat, dairy products and wool for grain from the Pokuttia and Maramureș regions.

The entry “Carpathian Mountains” also states that in the 19th century, dairy cattle farming was central to the Hutsul region, and that sheep farming and the breeding of the well-known Hutsul horse also developed there. As for the Hutsuls themselves, the same encyclopedia’s entry “Hutsuls” describes them as an ethnographic group of “Ukrainian highlanders engaged in animal husbandry.”

Brynza Has Been Made on the Polonyna

The IEU entry “Traditional foods” calls the salty cheese made from sheep’s milk “budz” or “brynza” (bryndzia), and states that it is made in the Hutsul region and Bukovyna. According to VUE’s entry “Brynza” (published 2021), brynza is a type of cheese aged in brine, and its name derives from the Romanian word for “cheese.” It is made from the milk of sheep, cows and goats.

Ordinary factory-made brynza is set after the milk has been heat-pasteurized, but VUE states that on the mountain polonyna it is made from unpasteurized milk. It also states that it is made exclusively by male shepherds.

A July 2025 article by Ukraine’s National Intellectual Property Office (UKRNOIVI) introduces the geographical indication “Hutsul Sheep Brynza” (registered name Гуцульська овеча бриндзя) as a cheese made from raw, unpasteurized sheep’s milk. It explains that the milk comes from local breeds of sheep, and that the entire production process, carried out in several stages, takes place on the polonyna.

Listed on the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage

By Order No. 228 of 6 July 2022, Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy added “Hutsul brynza” (listed as Гуцульська бриндзя) to the national list of intangible cultural heritage (protection number 044н.к.с.). The domains are “knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe” and “traditional craftsmanship”; the region is the Rakhiv district of Zakarpattia Oblast and parts of Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi oblasts.

The same order also includes recommendations from the expert council: to draw up a one-to-five-year protection plan by 15 September 2022; to create a management plan that avoids excessive commercialization or turning the practice into a mere tourist product, while also considering the economic benefit to the local community; and to carry out research on this element and hold events to raise awareness of it.

On 24 March 2025, Order No. 268 of the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications added “the tradition of livestock grazing on the Bukovynian polonyny and Bessarabian stryhy of Chernivtsi Oblast” (protection number 108н.к.с.) to the list as well. The list states that this summer life on the polonyna (polonynske lituvannia) is found in the Vyzhnytsia, Chernivtsi and Dnistrovskyi districts of Chernivtsi Oblast, and ethnographically in the Bukovynian Hutsul region and elsewhere. The domains listed include traditional food and music.

As of September 2026, seven Ukrainian elements are on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists, and neither brynza nor polonyna herding is among them.

Geographical-Indication Registrations

As a food, brynza is also covered by a separate system. The register of geographical indications published by UKRNOIVI lists the following two entries.

According to UKRNOIVI, sheep brynza was the first Ukrainian product to gain geographical-indication status under the new law, in 2019. The covered area is the ethnographic “Hutsul region” within Zakarpattia Oblast, along with several districts of Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi oblasts. In another article, the office explains that both brynzas were registered, in line with EU standards, as “designations of origin” (equivalent to the EU’s Protected Designation of Origin, PDO).

While the national list of intangible cultural heritage records knowledge and skills passed down over generations, the geographical-indication system determines the place of origin and method of production that entitle a product to carry that name.

Regional differences in Ukrainian cuisine, and other foods on the national list, are covered in the article on Ukraine’s table; craftsmanship from the same Hutsul region is covered in Kosiv painted ceramics; and the wooden churches of the mountains are covered in the Carpathian wooden churches.