High School Graduates Parade in Ternopil

May 12 is a high school graduation day in Ukraine in 2012. Proms are everywhere that day, in big cities and in little towns!

The best high school graduation ceremony I have ever seen in my life was in the city of Ternopil, western Ukraine. They have an amazing parades of graduates! Dressed up graduates from each high school, along with their teachers, orchestra, performers and local authority representatives are walking through the central street downtown to the city stadium where a graduation ceremony is taking place. Here are few videos of this amazing parade. First one is graduates parade in Ternopil in 2009 and a second one is parade in 2010:

Life With a View – Ukrainian Carpathians

I got inspired by this photo album so much and I decided I have to write about it! I am talking about Tania D’Avignon’s series of pictures from Carpathian Mountains, western Ukraine.

Tania is known Ukrainian-American photographer; her works were published all over the world. Tania is actually sharing her life between two countries – USA and Ukraine. She took thousands pictures of Ukraine (Ukraine is a country where Tania’s roots are); she had lots of exhibitions of her photographs; she has published a book entirely of Ukrainian pictures – Simply Ukraine
And this Tania’s photo album from Carpathian Mountains – it’s something! I love the photographs as well as the name Tania gave to her Carpathian album – “Life with a View”.

I know what Tania is talking about, saying “Life with a View”. I am originally from Ukraine and I live in Canada now, in a nice picturesque mountains place, which remind me so much of Carpathian Mountains! In warm days I have my breakfast on a deck with amazing view – that’s what I call “Breakfast with a view”. And I see something like Carpathian Mountains almost every day, directly from my deck, only in Canadian version. Well, let me take a look at Tania’s pictures again… Nope, Ukrainian version is better! So, here we go – let’s take a little tour to a life with a view in Ukrainian Carpathians, through the eyes of Tania D’Avignon:

Beautiful, isn’t? Well, the roads to get to this beauty are not really attractive. This is a part of Ukrainian reality too – not the best part though, and a truthful photographer like Tania cannot have her eyes closed on it:

Despite of breathtaking views, life in Ukrainian mountains is really hard for locals, especially farming life:

Kids from the Mountains in their early age learn how to take care about horses, cows and sheep and how to work on a land. Here is a sweet little girl with a horse:

Well, hardships and farming skills from the very young age, and, let’s be honest, a dream to escape from the Mountains somewhere to a big city, where life is more easy to maintain – this is a price that locals from Carpathians pay for having these gorgeous views to themselves.

But for tourists, especially for those, who are looking for non-touristy places, who wants to see local farming and the way Mountains people live, Ukrainian Carpathians is a right place to go. I am not talking about bigger cities in the Mountains, like Yaremche or Vorokhta, where picky tourist can find everything, including luxurious rooms with a spa etc. I am talking about little towns and villages in Carpathians, like Verkhovyna, Pysanyj Kamin’, and many-many other little places in the Mountains, where Tania took her pictures and where life is REAL. Life with a view…

The Guy Who Plays Square Shaped Violin, Dulcimer Covered with a Towel and Much More

Every time my husband and I are traveling in Ukrainian Carpathians, we just love to visit the Museum of Musical Instruments and Hutsuls Lifestyle in Verkhovyna, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast’. We always so glad to meet Roman Kumlyk (on the picture above) – he is owner and founder of the museum, a brilliant musician and songwriter and, I would say, he is a live encyclopedia of Hutsuls life. Roman is also a tour guide in his own museum – except telling stories about musical instruments in his collection, he plays on EACH instrument in the museum. It is so much fun to listen to Roman’s playing! Every time it is something new and excited. These videos were taken in our trip to western Ukraine in 2011. We were amazed of Roman playing tsymbaly (dulcimer). Here is a first video:
That’s not all what Roman can do with his dulcimer. For next musical demonstration, the musician covered the dulcimer with a towel and played this way. We never saw anything like this before. How does he know where the keys are?!
Next video is – Roman Kumlyk is playing sopilka and tsymbaly at the same time. Quite an art!
Violin is one of the favorite instruments of Roman. He got a nice collection of different violins in his museum. For example, a square shaped one. The musician played some country-like tune for us on this square violin:
And finally, take a look at this tiny violin in Roman’s hands (next video). He told us a story that such little violins were made in Carpathian Mountains for kids to learn how to play a violin. When a kid was good enough in playing this small instrument, then teacher could give him a normal violin to play. I have to say, in old time in Carpathian Mountains there were no professional teachers of music, especially in such rural cities and towns like Verkhovyna and smaller. Local people were learning from each other how to play musical instruments. So, here are few tunes of mountain music from Ukraine, performed by Roman Kumlyk on this tiny violin:
Our recommendation for those who traveling in Ukrainian Carpathians – visit Kumlyk’s museum! You will have a great time, like we did!

Bev's and Len's Ukraine

In summer 2011 my husband’s brother Len and his wife Bev have visited Ukraine for the first time in their life. Bev and Len are Canadian Ukrainians, as well as my husband Ron and me.

It was nice heritage trip – discovering ancestry roots and meeting our families in West Ukraine.

Bev and Len are also very good photographers, so they took lots of pictures and videos that reflect how my Canadian relatives with Ukrainian ancestry saw a land of their grandparents and great-grandparents for the first time.

So, here we go – Bev’s and Len’s Ukraine for you, on the pictures below.

First one is actually my favorite one, from our whole trip (Ron and I went together with Bev and Len). This is pigeons feeding downtown of Ternopil, Theatre Square. Many travelers compare Ternopil with Rome, because of the pigeons on a central square. This is old tradition in Ternopil – people feeding pigeons on the Theatre Square for years and years:

Next picture is taken in the Greek-Catholic Cathedral ofTernopil. Such a beautiful painting! Done by local artists in 1990^th:

The musician of the next picture is very famous in Western Ukraine. His name is Roman Kumlyk, he is a folk musician and a song writer from Verkhovyna, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast’ in Ukrainian Carpathians. Roman also is an owner of private Museum of Music Instruments and Hutsuls Lifestyle in Verkhovyna. He is a guide of the Museum and he can play on each instrument in his collection. Roman was collecting all these musical instruments and other stuff in his Museum for years. On this picture the musician is entertaining visitors of the Museum, playing tsymbaly (dulcimer):

Next photo I like a lot! Just harvested young potatoes from Bev’s Ukrainian family garden. All organic!

Well, if it’s came to food, here is another food picture from my Canadian relatives. Len took it in the Old Mill Restaurant-Museum inTernopil. In the bread bowl is one of specialties of Ukrainian cuisine – a green borshch. This is a soup made from sorrel, stinging nettle and other greens from Ukrainian garden, like, green onion, parsley and dill. Served with hard boiled eggs. In cute wooden bowl there is a traditional Ukrainian salad from a raw cabbage – not coleslaw though. Just shredded cabbage, carrot, some green onion and parsley and all of it is sprinkled with extra virgin sunflower oil. Yum!

On a picture below there is a fragment of the wooden B&B house in Ukrainian Carpathians where we all used to stay:

And finally, a pretty girl, dressed up in 19 century styled dress, is selling flowers on a street of Lviv. Lviv is an old city, with an amazing medieval charm and spirit of previous centuries. There are lots of things to enjoy in Lviv!