Project “Etnokrai Romenshchyna: traditions and heritage”. Its goal is to preserve and popularise the authentic everyday culture of Ukrainians, foster respect for cultural diversity and widen the circle of people engaged with our heritage.
Paintings that adorned homes – Part 1
As we have already mentioned, naïve art is the artist’s sincere vision of the world, created without adhering to academic artistic conventions. Naïve art takes the form of paintings on glass, canvas or plywood, created by self-taught artists. Musical accompaniment: the Ukrainian folk song ‘Kucheryavaya Bereza’, performed by the amateur vocal ensemble ‘Kryshtalevyy Peredzvin’ from the Ovlashiv Leisure Centre (led by Olga Svyrydenko). Photographs: Volodymyr Myshchenko.
Embroidered towels from the Romny region: Part 4
Today we’ll be talking about towels embroidered using the artistic satin stitch. The embroiderers themselves tell us that they devised the patterns for their towels themselves, drawing inspiration from everything they saw around them. Musical accompaniment: the Ukrainian folk song ‘Kotylyasya horoshina’, performed by the amateur vocal ensemble ‘Pravdyuchanochka’ from the Pravdyukivsky Village Club (led by Kateryna Lushchan). Photographs: Volodymyr Myshchenko.
Embroidered towels from the Romny region, part 3
Today we will show and tell you about Krovets towels, which were an integral part of traditional Ukrainian culture. In the villages of the Romny district, you can hear the local name for these towels – ‘bav’yani’ – from the older generation. Musical accompaniment: the Ukrainian folk song ‘Vyshyvala ya’, performed by a trio comprising Nadiya, Yuliya and Yelyzaveta Skrynnyk from the Batsmaniv Leisure Centre (led by Tetiana Hatsenko). Photographs: Volodymyr Myshchenko, Valentyna Demchenko, Nataliia Kolomiiets, Valentyna Lazorenko.
Embroidered towels from the Romny region, part 2
Did you know that towels can ‘speak’? Yes, they ‘speak’ through letters and numbers! Today we’ll show you towels embroidered with dates and inscriptions, and introduce you to towels in the Naïve style. Naïve towels are characterised by simple, heartfelt and imaginative images born of the folk imagination. Musical accompaniment: the Ukrainian folk song ‘The Moon Across the Sky’, performed by the amateur vocal ensemble ‘Crystal Chimes’ from the Ovlashiv Leisure Centre (director Olga Svyrydenko). Photographs: Volodymyr Myshchenko, Nina Pasynkova.
Embroidered towels from the Romny region, part 1
It is hard to imagine a Ukrainian home without embroidered towels. No matter how modest the home might be, the towel invariably held a place of honour within it. Towels served as a kind of measure of a woman’s skill, diligence and artistic taste. Today we’ll be talking about the towels that were hung during Lent, towels with religious motifs and the ‘bread towel’. Musical accompaniment: the Ukrainian folk song ‘The cuckoo sang, sitting on the platform’, performed by a family trio comprising Nadiya, Yuliya and Yelyzaveta Skrynnyk from the Batsmanivsky Leisure Centre (led by Tetiana Hatsenko). Photographs: Volodymyr Myshchenko, Larysa Oksom, Valentyna Demchenko.
Traditional jewellery for girls and women in the Romny region
Today we’d like to tell you about the jewellery worn by our ancestors. A coral necklace was not only an ornament, but also a form of currency with which one could buy a house or a pair of oxen. Musical accompaniment: the Ukrainian folk song ‘Na horodi verba’ performed by the duo of Nataliia Zalutskaya and Lyubov Kovalenko from the Mykolaiv Rural House of Culture (led by Nataliia Zalutskaya). Photographs: Volodymyr Myshchenko.
Building a village house in the Romny area
"To someone my house is a shed, to me it is a flower," the saying goes. That is why we begin with the traditional Ukrainian khata (a village house) — because all of life begins there. A khata is not simply a dwelling but a whole universe of its own, where every detail carries meaning and memory. When a house rises, a destiny rises with it: its walls hold up not only the roof but the continuity of the family line, its joys and its trials.
The stove in the Romny area
"Our stove is laughing away, it is longing for a korovai." We want to tell and show you the traditional Ukrainian pich (stove). The stove is the heart of the house, a cornerstone of our ancestors' life and daily round. What are the vyushky (dampers), the cherin (the hearth floor), the prypichok (the ledge in front of it)? Why was the rohach (the oven fork) put out of the house during a thunderstorm? All of this and more is in our film. Sadly, with urbanisation and new technology the Ukrainian stove is passing into the past, and fewer and fewer of them are left…
The dish rack and household ware
Today we want to tell and show you what a mysnyk (an open dish rack) is. "Hunger is no aunt of yours — you cannot lay your teeth on the dish rack." From the oldest times a mysnyk stood in every Ukrainian house, an inseparable part of its warmth. There the mistress of the house carefully set out the best ware — clay bowls and deep dishes, jugs, gourd vessels, pots and the rest of the everyday household ware. The mysnyk was not only a place to keep things, but an adornment of the home in its own right.
Traditional household furniture
We want to tell you about the furniture without which our ancestors' house is unthinkable: the table, the bench and the low stool. And also about what people slept on. Have you ever slept on a polyk (a wide plank sleeping platform), or in an old wooden bed made up with a soft feather mattress?
The dowry chest in the Romny area
A century-old skrynia (a dowry chest) creaks softly, and out of the depths of its wooden floor the past rises. In this film we want to show and tell you what a skrynia is, and which chests were in use here in the Romny area. A chest is not simply a thing to keep clothes in — it is about the memory of a family, handed on from one generation to the next.
The icon corner
The pokut (the icon corner) is the holiest and most honoured place in the house. We go on with our story about the things without which our ancestors' home is unthinkable. For many families the pokut was the place they turned to in prayer and in thanks, the place where the memory of the forebears was kept. It was a small church of one's own home.
Traditional farm buildings
Old wooden komory (granaries): silent keepers of time. Today we want to tell and show you some of the most important farm buildings our ancestors put up — the komora (granary), the sazh (pig pen), the povitka (open shed) and the khliv (byre). Sadly, over the years many unique examples of Ukrainian building culture have gone, and only here and there in the villages can you still meet these silent witnesses of their time…
Christmas traditions of the Romny area
The didukh (a sheaf of grain brought into the house at Christmas) and kutia (the ritual wheat-and-honey dish) are the most sacred and most important attributes of a Ukrainian Christmas — symbols of family memory, of plenty and of the bond between generations, which our ancestors held in particular reverence. Today the Christmas supper is a different one. Not everyone is able to gather at the table in their own home. Our defenders meet Sviat Vechir (Christmas Eve) in the trenches and at their positions. It is thanks to them that the centuries-old traditions of our ancestors are still kept. Thank you for the right to meet Christmas on our own land.
Making homespun cloth. Part 1
What did people once have to do to come by so much as a plain shirt or a towel? In this film you will learn how our ancestors grew hemp and told ploskin from matirka (the male and the female plants), how they worked the fibre — retting, drying, scutching, breaking and combing it — and how they spun thread by hand from the finished mychky (rolls of combed fibre) with a spindle and a spinning wheel.
Making homespun cloth. Part 2
Part two: spinning, weaving on the loom and bleaching the finished cloth.
How our ancestors washed and ironed clothes
To wash the clothes, a housewife today can press a few buttons on the washing machine and go off for a coffee, for a walk, to work or to visit friends. Our ancestors, though, put a great deal of hard work into washing clothes and the rest of their homespun things.
Masnytsia traditions
Masnytsia (Shrovetide) is not only mlyntsi and varenyky but a whole range of old rites as well. During Masnytsia married women went round the houses where unmarried lads lived and jokingly tied a small wooden block — a kolodka — to their leg. Here we introduce you to that rite of tying the kolodka, staged by the amateur performers of the Ovlashi leisure centre. The staging recreates an old Shrovetide custom; every "treat" in the frame is a prop and nothing more.
Traditional shirts of the Romny area
"I put on my shirt, I tied my kerchief — what a fine young wife I am!" The sorochka (shirt) is the foundation of the whole traditional dress. It is the first layer to touch the body: cloth woven and embroidered by a woman's own hands, holding her painstaking labour, her patience and her way of showing what she could create.
Brocard embroidery
Did you know that the cross-stitch we take for granted only became the mainstream at the end of the nineteenth century? Along with factory thread and printed patterns, the "Brocard" fashion swept into the villages. Before that people embroidered in more archaic techniques — lyshtva (satin stitch), vyrizuvannia (cutwork), vykoliuvannia (eyelet work) and merezhka (drawn-thread work).
Children's and men's shirts
"Come on Sunday, Hryts, and I will give you a shirt, a fine white one." Did you know that up to a certain age children were dressed no differently from one another — all of them in a single long little shirt, sewn out of their parents' worn-out ones? What was the traditional man's shirt like? What is an artil shirt, and why has so little traditional men's clothing survived? You will find all of it in our film.
Women's waist garments
Instead of the skirts we are used to, women once wore a plakhta — an unsewn woven waist garment with its distinctive chequered pattern. It was wrapped over the shirt and completed with a zapaska (an apron-like panel). The skirt that seems ordinary to us appeared on Ukrainian lands only at the end of the thirteenth century.
Old given names of the Romny area
Today we introduce you to the old given names of our region. Did you know that the Romny area has a name all of its own — Okrasyna? And do you know what your own forebears were called?
Women's outer garments
Today we introduce you to more kinds of traditional women's clothing worn by our ancestors, namely the kersetka (a fitted sleeveless overdress), the yupka and the kokhta. A yupka is not a skirt: it is an outer garment for women, close to a svyta or a kersetka but with sleeves. These pieces bring together the style, the taste and the fashion of their day.
The traditional footwear of our ancestors
Today we want to tell and show you what our ancestors wore on their feet. Footwear was once nothing like as easy to come by as it is now: one large family might have a single pair of boots between them. Boots and shoes were looked after and put on mainly for important occasions. In summer, on an ordinary weekday, village people mostly went barefoot.
Girls' and women's headwear
Today we want to tell you about the headwear of girls and of married women. Girls adorned their heads with ribbons, and on feast days put a vinok (a woven wreath of flowers) on top of them. Once a girl married, her headdress became the ochipok (a close-fitting cap that covered the hair).
Share your family's tradition
Record a song, tell us about a ritual, share a recipe. Every story is part of our shared heritage.
