The second time we visited Sofia Hohulia from Medvyn (born in 1937), we asked her to teach us how to make a ‘flower’ – the local equivalent of ‘didukh’, which was crafted at the end of the harvest season, ceremonially celebrated on the Saviour’s Day and used at Christmas.
‘We reap wheat or rye, oats, barley and braid them into bouquets. You take rye or wheat [for the bouquet] and say it’s for the goat’s beard. Then you wrap the bouquet’s stems with straw [from that bouquet]. Then more bouquets are tied to the sides of the bouquet to make it lush, like a tree. In the end, four legs are bent from the woven stems at the bottom, and the middle is cut off,’ says Ms Sofia.
‘When exactly was it made, on the Saviour’s Day?’, we asked Sofia Hohulia.
‘When the harvest was over, we took a bundle of those spikelets and made a flower. We didn’t do it on a holiday, because if you do anything on a holiday, you’ll definitely get sick. Later it was taken to church and blessed,’ says Sofia.
Elderly Medvyn villagers remember that before a functioning Orthodox church appeared in Medvyn on Mykoliia in the mid-20th century, blessings were performed around a 600-year-old oak tree standing in the cemetery opposite the church.
Did they make any ‘flowers’ in your village?
This project is supported by the Partnership for a Strong Ukraine Fund, which is funded by the governments of Canada, Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
