Folk Trades, ustoms and Traditions

Folk Trades, ustoms and Traditions

Hutsulshchyna is rich in people’s trades, customs, and traditions. The centres of the people’s trades are Kosiv and Yavoriv. Famous engravers, ceramists, weavers, and embroiders live there. Their works are exhibited in museums all over the world.

Embroidery of Hutsulshchyna is one of the most famous kinds of people’s art. It is a general Slavic tradition to embroider the clothes. Hutsul embroidery is remarkable for its colour and technique. Hutsul embroidery as a rule uses geometrical ornament. When people meet guests they put bread and salt on the embroidered towel.

Another popular tradition is pisankarstvo (ornamenting (dec­o­rating) eggs during Easter holidays). Such eggs were usually ornamented by women and girls and rarely by boys and men.

Hutsul customs and ceremonies from the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century are preserved nowadays. The family and calendar holidays are Christmas, Easter, Green Holidays, and Spas. Before Green Holidays Ukrainians usually decorate their houses and fences with green branches of time trees. There are many ceremonial songs con­nected with these holidays such as shchedrivky, coliadky and hayivky.

Family customs and ceremo­nies mark the most important events in the life of a man: the birth of a baby, marriage, death. For instance, a bride embroiders a towel and the young couple stands on it during the wedding church service.