Everyone is becoming more and more interested in ethnic customs and weddings are one of the biggest times in people’s lives when they want their ethnicity to show. October 11, 2008, marked the second annual Rozhanytsia Festival in the village of Bobrytsia in the Kiev region that is the perfect example of what a truly traditional Ukrainian wedding is like. Even though the many villages in Ukraine has their set of customs, rituals, and traditions when it comes to their young people – and old people – getting married, the basic wedding, which visitors to the festival got to experience, is the same all over the country. The wedding included traditional songs, dances, and wedding cake called ‘korovai’ in Ukrainian.
Because of Ukraine’s diverse geography, there are plenty of differences within each wedding ceremony. The director of the Choven Theater and founder of the festival, Roman Korniienko stated that the festival does not try to show the differences. Instead, the festival attempts to show the variety of the traditional throughout the country. He is hoping to organize at least one live wedding for next year’s festival in an effort to revive the old traditions.
A traditional Ukrainian wedding is in three parts or ‘porohy’ and each division encompasses various Ukrainian traditions. The stage before the wedding is usually the biggest one with the wedding itself being the finale of the celebration in which family members and friends – but not the bride and groom – get to drink and ‘make merry’ on their behalf. Additional traditions are being revived as the festival planning for next year continues in the hopes on enlightening Ukrainian youth – and the rest of the world – of some of the traditions that have almost been lost.
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