We went to the American Chamber of Commerce’s 4th of July picnic on Saturday. It sucked. The weather was horrible and the were wholly unprepared – one dinky little tent that didn’t even come close to having enough space for all the people stuck in the rain. The weather was bad last year, too, but at least they had a huge canopy/tent set up in the middle where you could sit down on a dry bench at a dry table. No such tent this year, which was a huge stupid mistake. We met up with the Democrats Abroad, toughed it out for a bit, and then a bunch of us decided to go to a warm, dry bar instead.
Sunday, Igor and I went to the Kraina Mrii (Dream Country) folk festival. It was FABULOUS! I was only disappointed that we hadn’t also gone during the first two days of the festival, on Friday and Saturday. We spent something like 6 or 7 hours watching the different artisans work (blacksmiths, weavers, embroiderers, potters, wood carvers), checking out all the cool stuff for sale (still can’t decide if it was good or bad that we didn’t have much money with us), listening to beautiful music, watching cool dances and Cossack “re-enactors.”
We were both really impressed to see so many people wearing traditional Ukrainian costumes – not just the artisans and performers, but regular people who were just out to enjoy the festival like us. We caught the bug and bought a couple of old shirts – hand woven linen with beautiful hand embroidery. I need to wash them, one of them was a real bargain but looks (and smells) like it’s been in a basement for about 100 years. But I think they’ll be really beautiful once cleaned up.
Anka in Kyiv 