Holy Trinity Day

It rained in the late morning and early afternoon. Not good for an outdoor festival. Then, however, it stopped!


Today is Holy Trinity Day in Ukraine, and there was a local festival at the Chernivtsi Regional Museum of Folk Architecture and Life celebrating the holiday. The festival was called Obnova.

We hopped on bus number 4, paid our 1 hyrvnia each for the bus ticket (that equals about 12 cents) and showed the bus conductor the flier we had for the festival so she could tell us when to hop off.

The festival was a lot of fun.

All the museum exhibits were open; their exhibits are all in Bukovina houses from different periods, and some had hatched roofs. There were singers onstage, bonfires ready to be lit at night, little stands selling traditional Ukrainian items, and food stands. Jeff had a hot dog and I had some holubsee and we enjoyed walking around.

I believe I have written about this before…people find the most creative ways of making money for themselves. It is definitely a holdover from the Soviet system, when everything was so regulated. It forced people to develop unlicensed ways of selling things. You constantly see babushkas and others on the side of the street and in metro stops in Kyiv and other cities, setting up impromptu markets. They sell shoes, flowers, vegetables, socks, etc. One thing I have found particularly interesting is that basbushkas put out scales. People come by, weight themselves, and then give some money to the basbushka. See the scales?

Then, I decided to check out some traditional Ukrainian clothes. This woman seemed to have so much fun dressing me. She just kept putting stuff on me.

She wasn't finished...

I debated for about an hour over whether or not the shirt was something I actually would wear at home, and then I realized that all these designers are now selling stuff like this. The Tory Burch website has lots of these kind of things. Plus, I could wear it for Halloween, and when will I ever have an opportunity to buy traditional Ukrainian clothes again. So I found one I liked, bought a matching belt, and promptly put it on.

More festival shots:

We took the same bus back to town that we took to the festival. On the way, we passed a huge cemetery, which includes the Jewish cemetery. Every August, a big group of people, including a lot of young people from across Europe, come to Chernivtsi and help clean the cemetery. There is actually a Facebook group for it, which I am in, although we won’t be here to participate. I love that people are continuing to do this, even if only once per year. From atop this hill, there were some great views of Chernivtsi. You could see all the tops of the churches, with their onion domes.

We passed this strore, and stopped just long enough for me to read the sign. It reads Laminate and Parquet. Love it when I can actually figure this stuff out.

Then we went to have coffee near the Opera House.
Here was the view:

I loved sitting outside, looking at the crowds and the pretty buildings. This place is much prettier and more alive in the spring than it was in the winter. It is amazing the extent to which weather can impact thee experience one has , especially in places with extreme weather conditions. It is interesting to me that people over here don’t socialize in ways the we do at home. Many of them sit and smoke in public areas, or buy a drink at the market and sit outside. I guess it is less expensive. It creates a situation in which there are always lots of people just hanging out. It is kind of nice. If you want to see or be around people, just go to the Opera House square. Chernivtsi isn’t that big (about 240,000) and you frequently see people running into each other unexpectedly. I like that kind of familiarity and sense of community.

Then we went to Potato Hut for dinner and had burritos. There was a very pretty pink sky as the sun set on the walk home.