Introduction

Hey everyone! We are music students at the University of Windsor and are enrolled in an ethnomusicology course. As Easter is fast approaching we will be focusing our ethnographic research on Ukrainian Easter traditions, dances, music, and foods associated with this religious holiday. We will be posting pictures, videos, and sharing our thoughts throughout this experience. 
Thank you for visiting our KievKulture blog and we hope you come back soon! 

Victoria Turner & Monica Lamos

Trip to European Market

Monday March 3rd we decided to drive to the European Market (Walker Road) on a quest to find some authentic Ukrainian food. I am familiar with the European atmosphere as I am Slovak and have shopped at the European Market in the past. On the other hand, this was a new experience for Victoria as she is "etic" to the European culture. As we strolled through the aisles and we noticed an abundance of multi-cultural foods. Among these foods we located some jarred beets and perogies in the corner of the store which we knew were Ukrainian from our research. We asked one of the employees where we could find more Ukrainian items in the store. As she looked around the store she had a difficult time distinguishing Russian food from Ukrainian food, as they share many cultural similarities. Although the store carried more Russian food than Ukrainian, we were not disappointed because a fresh batch of paczkis were awaiting us on the counter for our dining pleasure!! :)

Monica Lamos & Victoria Turner

The Ukrainian Restaurant of Windsor

Monica and I have done a fair amount of research about Ukrainian food and what would be served at an Easter dinner celebration. We wanted to taste an authentic Ukrainian Easter dish for ourselves. We googled Ukrainian restaurants in Windsor and found only one. We decided to go there for lunch and upon our arrival we were greeted by a sweet elderly lady named Anna. She began to speak in a foreign language that Monica and I assumed was Ukrainian. To our surprise Monica was able to understand what Anna was asking and quickly replied in Slovak (Monica's native language). We just assumed that Slovak and Ukrainian were very similar languages. PLOT TWIST: The restaurant owner Anna was not Ukrainian but was in fact from Yugoslavia and was speaking Russian to us. It turns out that Russian and Slovak are very similar languages. Anna had simply mistaken us for two Russian clientele and apologized. Monica discovered that Anna was from the same part of Yugoslavia that her mother was from. They talked for a while and discovered that Anna was acquainted with Monica's grandmother. SMALL WORLD! We asked why she owned a Ukrainian restaurant instead of a Slovak restaurant. Anna told us that she bought the Ukrainian Restaurant in 1968 from a Ukrainian woman who had owned it since 1931. This Ukrainian woman taught her how to cook the menu. Anna chose to keep the decor and the menu the same as she did not want to lose her clientele. She is now 80 years old and has been running the restaurant on her own for 40 years. She says Ukrainian food is very similar the Serbian food her mother used to make so it was very easy to pick up. I found it interesting that the Ukraine shares many similarities with other cultures.

Today we had a real taste of the Ukraine and the privilege of eating traditional cabbage and borsch (beet) soup, as well as perogies with sautéed onion and sour cream. Yum! These foods would be served at a traditional Ukrainian Easter dinner. The room was decorated with authentic Ukrainian embroidery, pictures of national dancers, nature and landscape. Anna and her restaurant have been the focus of a number of new paper articles. She is known for her friendly service as well as her fabulous cooking. We really felt as though we had walked into another world, a new culture... Ukraine  

Victoria Turner

Ukrainian Restaurant "A Real taste of the Ukraine"

Interior of the restaurant

Anna showed us an article about herself 
and the restaurant

Monica and Anna, holding a picture 
of the restaurant taken in 1972.
Painting of Anna in the background hangs about the menu. 

Meeting with Diana Cuckovic

On March 10th, we met with my good friend Diana Cuckovic, a student at the University of Windsor. Diana takes part in Ukrainian traditions in Windsor and is a member of the Windsor Barvinok Ukrainian dance ensemble. Her family attends the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Vladimir and continues Ukrainian customs and traditions in their home here in Canada. Victoria and I have never attended an Orthodox church service (let alone a Ukrainian one) so we asked Diana what a typical Easter-Sunday Orthodox church service would be like. She explained that the service is always at least two and a half hours long all spoken in Ukrainian, and the congregation remains standing for the whole service. There are no instruments played during the singing of the hymns and definitely no clapping. We also found it interesting that the room is split up by gender, men standing on the right side and women on the left. This is very different to the church services Victoria and I attend on Easter Sunday. Ukrainian Orthodox Great Lent is a time where they abstain from eating all meat, poultry and byproducts. For some families eggs, milk, cheese, and even fish are not allowed. Diana's family eats fish on Good Friday with potatoes. Their typical Easter Sunday meal would contain borscht (beet) soup, bread, perogies, lamb, cabbage rolls and kutia (sweet grain pudding made of wheat, honey and nuts). There is a fun Ukrainian game called navbytky that is played at Easter gatherings where each person chooses an Easter egg and knocks each other's eggs together. The point of the game is to crack the other person's egg without cracking your own. The last egg/person standing wins! Ha ha, this sounds like a lot of fun, I will have to try this at my family Easter this year!

 In this meeting Diana also taught us about the different types of Ukrainian dances and the order in which they would be performed in a program. The first dance in a Ukrainian Easter program is the Pryvit. It is a welcome dance with a lot of bowing, formal and slow where they present the blessed bread. This is one dance that is very presentational and non-participatory. There is one woman holding the bread and one man holding wheat. Next comes the Hopak a less formal dance, much faster than the Pryvit and participatory with much clapping from dancers and audience watching. The performers have many solos and high jumps showing off their hardest tricks. The final dance at the end of the program is the Kolomeyka. This is a social dance where the audience members join in and show off their own Ukrainian dance moves. Diana says although this is not a competitive dance it often turns into a showdown! Everyone forms a big circle and groups or individuals come into the center to dance. This dance is often seen at Ukrainian weddings and New Years celebrations. After learning all about the Ukrainian dances Diana taught us three basic dance steps from the Pryvit. 

We wanted to thank Diana for taking the time to talk with us, and give us a mini dance lesson. :)

Monica Lamos

Meeting with Sarah Reaume

Today I met with my good friend Sarah Reaume at the University of Windsor. Sarah knows a lot about Ukrainian culture as her Great-Grandmother was born in the Ukraine. Sarah has done Ukrainian dancing for a number of years with the Windsor Barvinok Ukrainian dance group.  During our meeting Sarah taught me a few dance steps from the Ukrainian dance called pryvit. The pryvit is a welcome dance where the bread and wheat are presented to the audience. The bread and the wheat symbolize the land’s fertility in the Ukraine. The pryvit is slower than the hopak and kolomainka, which are high-energy dances performed after the pryvit. These three dances are traditionally performed at an Easter celebration after church. I could not believe how much energy and stamina Ukrainian dance requires! I look forward to practicing the dance steps while burning some calories in the process! I took Irish dancing lessons for a few years when I was younger and it was interesting to compare the two dance cultures. In Irish dancing the hands and arms are rigid at the sides, whereas in Ukrainian dancing the arms and hands are required to move. 

Sarah brought pieces of her dance outfit to our meeting, which included a red beaded necklace, a headpiece (called the vynok), and a blouse (called the poltava). The headpiece was so beautiful and elaborate…it was fun to try it on. Sarah also brought some pysanky, which are hand painted Ukrainian Easter eggs. Pysanky are painted using a wax-resist method, which requires a steady hand a lot of patience. Sarah explained that the day before Easter, Ukrainian families bring an Easter basket containing pysanky, paska (Easter bread), and other items to be blessed by a priest the day before Easter. Monica and I plan to make a Ukrainian Easter basket and post pictures on this blog…stay tuned! Finally, Sarah taught me how to say Happy Easter in Ukraine..
                                                                       Христос воскрес! Воістину воскрес!
                                                                       Chrystos voskres! Voistynu voskres!
                                                                       Christ is Risen! He is Indeed Risen!

Thank you Sarah for the time you spent teaching me about Ukrainian culture and allowing me to borrow your dance outfit and pysanky!! :)

Victoria Turner

Pictures and videos of meeting with Sarah

Trying on the vynok & poltava

Sarah wearing the vynok

Sarah's pysanky

Click "Older Posts" in the bottom right hand corner to see the rest of our blog posts! :)