“And our Malanka is stunning, hard-working, she milked a goat in a sieve, like a good girl!” – well, our team of “Bohuslav Koliada” (Bohuslav Carols) completes the cycle of winter holidays, and thus, the cycle of carolling in Bohuslavshchyna!
Indeed, it was very warm, heartfelt and bright performance, and left us with plenty of impressions and emotions! Let us tell you how we celebrated Malanka! We visited 16 hospitable locations, where we were delighted to bring local customs of generosity (or “shchedruvannia”) and wishes for a generous evening and a victorious year. Each host welcomed us with sincerity and generosity, joined our performance and was happy to have Malanka and the band in their home!
In addition to the unsurpassed Malanka herself, we had many other flamboyant traditional characters in our group: Vasyl, a goat, a bear, an old man, a Jew, a soldier, the walker with a sack, a group of girls and boys, including little ones, who, along with adults, actively and joyfully carolled throughout the frosty day! We performed in private homes at the invitation of good people, and for employees of the City Council, the Social and Humanitarian Department, ‘Bohuslavblahoustriy’, in cafes and restaurants, at the butter factory, in Bohuslav and the villages: Semyhory, Deshky and Rozkopantsi.
For instance, in Semyhory, we were met by villagers who usually volunteer tirelessly to prepare food and other necessities for our defenders on the frontline. There was also a soldier who came for a visit to his native village. We have great respect and gratitude to Borys Matviyenko, who works in an ambulance, saving our soldiers, and to everyone who made it possible for us to live and be free.
In Rozkopantsi, we visited a married couple, Lidiya and her husband, Ivan. Lidiya was one of the first individuals we visited with our expeditions, and she performed many songs for us, carols and shchedrivky. And it was from her that we first heard the carol “Oh, yesterday in the evening, Malanka was herding two drakes”, which we loved so much. We couldn’t persuade her husband to sing it back then, though. But miracles do happen during the winter holidays, because Mr Ivan together with his wife did sing some old carols to our group! It was very touching and very precious! By the way, not only the couple, but the whole family of theirs is creative and musical!
In Bohuslav, we also visited Olha Dzhul, the wife of the founder and mentor of the “Koliada” (Carols) group. This group has been preserving and multiplying Ukrainian traditions in Bohuslav for over 50 years. It was a great honour for us to be able to perform for Mrs Olha. And “Koliada” itself is, without exaggeration, a family affair for the Dzhul family. You can read about Hryhoriy’s life and work in a series of articles on our website (Article 1, Article 2, Article 3). We would also like to thank Oksana Dzhul, who trained our creative carolling team for both carols and shchedrivky performances! We believed in ourselves and we sang.
We are grateful to everyone who invited us to their homes, and who keeps on helping to revive our traditions and raise funds to support our defenders! We managed to raise almost 12 thousand hryvnias during the carolling, which will be transferred to the Bohuslav Volunteer Headquarters.
“Portal through the Centuries: Bohuslav Carols” is implemented by the “Around Us. UA” NGO as part of the training course “From Ideas to Action”, which is implemented with the support of the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) within the framework of the Safe Harbour initiative. Its contents do not necessarily reflect the official position of the EED and are the sole responsibility of the “Buslav Sich” NGO.
You can find even more highlights from our Malanka in the photo report.
