Culture and entertainment

 

 

Yaremche landscapes attracts visitors by the unique nature monuments, healthful pine air, fresh spring water, exciting sounding of trembita, vivid  Hutsul’s dances and triple music.

Yaremchanschyna is an unique region with the well stored native features, with the outstanding  professional and amateur  people, prominent monuments of cultural heredity. The spiritual  traditions of this region  aim at strong national identity of young citizens in alteration of integral national cultural space, development of national culture, its active entry into European and world space.

The artistic collectives of Yaremche  region are represented by  traditional folk-lore of this area: in a prose, song, dance, music, wares of decorative art.

In fact the Ukrainian song, embroidery, wares of the Ukrainian carvers and blacksmiths cant be confused with another, and they will return you to the native threshold from anywhere.

Yaremchanschyna is the tourist business card of Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains. Tourists and holiday-makers arrive here not only to admire the beauty of the nature but also to enjoy an original Hutsul art and feel the real color of Hutsul region.  

Folk amateur group «Petrovychi».

They give gladness to people from the youngest age. Love to music and to the song they inherited from their parents which respect music and well understand it. They ladle animation in the family, they take new forces from earth, spruce Carpathian mountains and stormy Prut.

The spirit of real Ukrainians, national pride and human dignity lives in Skazkiv’s family. They aim  to awaken the lost warmth, sincerity, love to each other and to the native land in human hearts with their unique music..

«Petrovychi» managed to become a famous amateur folk group with a wide repertoire: Hutsul melodies, Ukrainian folk songs and author works, compositions. Their dream is to raise Ukrainian song and folk music to the deserving place in our culture.

 

 

Magic Hutsul folk-lore group under the direction of Ivan Turchinyak from Mikulychyn and triple music of Juriy Popovich gladdens the ears of Yaremche citizens and guests.

These collectives were the participants of the International festivals in Ukraine and abroad for many times.

Ukrainian song! Whoever was charmed by it, whoever remembers it as their childhood and youth. Such collectives as “Carpathian Stars”(The House of Culture, Mykulychyn), folk amateur group “Berezunka”(The House of Culture, Tatariv), children’s music collective “Pervotsvit” (Dora) carry  a folk song to the people. Their repertoire includes  folk-lore ethnographic compositions, customs, traditions and ceremonies of Hutsul land.

 

The mountain river songs  sings,

Eagles from it water drink,

And a rain knocks out in a tambourine,

Winds play in dulcimers.

 

 An orchestra of folk instruments( leader Vasiliy Koval'chuk) is the pride of Yaremche region. This collective works at child's school of arts in Yaremche. Professional musicians, teachers form the composition of the orchestra. The bundle of Hutsul and folk melodies are included into their repertoire..

 

 Leading light of vocally instrumental genre is a folk amateur group «Taystra»(artistic leader Andrey Snisarenko), Hutsul taistra has become the symbol for them. It is the leather decorated bag taken on through the shoulder in this region. It contains the most necessary things for living when Hutsuls left for mountains and of course the magic pan-pipe was in this bag. Could the original Hutsul spend all the summer without this magic instrument, without folk songs? The participants of group «Taystra» get favorite Ukrainian songs from the «song taystra» and with gladness give them for people.

This collective is of the same age as such famous in Ukraine groups as  «Kobza», «Smerichka», «Oprishki», «Medobori», «Pisnyari».  

Masculine choir of the spiritual singing «Legit»(leader Sergey Tarnoveckiy), works at House of culture in Yaremche. They perform not only spiritual compositions but also Ukrainian folk songs in treatment of local composers. No one celebration takes place without this choir.

The folk amateur artistically-educational collective of the House of Culture of Yaremche works as a  mean of revival, development and saving of cultural values of native land (leader Svitlana Abram’yuk).

Holidays, literature-musical compositions, dramatizing legends with all the customs, culture, love for freedom, sincerity and inflammatory character of Hutsuls is shown in their performances. In a reward they get high confession and favor from the spectators. Every year a collective is filled up with the different elements of financial and spiritual culture of the Ukrainian people, the best properties of Hutsul’s heredity, traditions and ceremonies.

  

Here trembita plays daily, a pan-pipe wails,

Wind is a hubbub by a twitter, carries along the mountains,

Everything rings here, a native song is heard,

Here my Gucul'schina in gladness shines.

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Vocal band the «Apple-tree color»(club establishment  Yablunicya) is famous for its  Ukrainian folk songs, Kolomiyki, theatrical actions. The most popular holiday among tourists is New Year and Christmas .The large kolyada (celebration) is going annually in Yablunytsa. Kolyadniki is dressed in a folk clothes armed with trembita (a kind of big pan-pine), bluebells and notifies the good news - the birth of Jesus Christ. The guests of village become the participants of this authentic action too.

It is worth visiting the club establishment of our region where one can see the real artistic action - exhibition of decorative-habitual arts, inherent every society. And folk-lore collectives will be able to reproduce the forgotten folk ceremony: wedding, vechornytsi, output on a mountain valley, Christmas holidays, Easter, Green holidays, Ivan Kupala etc.

Yaremche is already famous as school of dance specialists due to such dance collectives as: a folk amateur choreographic troupe as «Grace» (leader Nadezhda Seregina), choreographic club «Impulse» (leader Alexandra Fedichkina), dancing troupe «Grandee» (leader Jana Mulyar), choreographic folk dance band «Hope» (leader Nadezhda Mushiy),  (leader Nelya Romanyuk). Dancing collectives are the participants of many competitions and festivals in Ukraine and abroad.

 

Our region is the tourist business card not only for our city but also for the whole district. We are the transmitters of Hutsul culture and traditions and we have to do the best to remain this city more interesting for tourists and guests.

The local inhabitants have preserved a lot of interesting folk customs, traditions, legends and decorative arts. Vivid and magnificent examples of creative work are expressed through ceramics, embroidery, weaving, artistic metals and wood carving. Visitors enjoy wandering along souvenir shops in local market place, having possibility to take a piece of Yaremche with them to their houses.

Local holidays and traditions make a great impression on everybody. Among them the Sending-off to the Mountains, the Hutsul’s wedding, religious holidays, especially the Christmas celebration with so-called “kolyadki” and “shchedrivki”, and St Basil, Vodohreshcha and Melanka feasts.

The Hutsul’s sending-off to the mountainous pastures is a great holiday for native people. The most interesting celebration takes place in Mykulychyn. It begins in May and lasts to September. The life in the pastures is hard: it is very cold there, it is often raining, sometimes snows. People work from morning till night but everyone dreams of being the real shepherd. Three things characterize the life Hutsul’s herdsmen:  cheese, fire and trembita. The chief burns the fire and the young men are performing the Hutsul ritual masculine dance “Arkan” with small hatchets in their hands. This kind of celebration ends with the concert.

Hutsul’s wedding performs as a fairy tale. Hutsuls adhere to their traditions even in our time. They are dressed in national clothes, decorate their horses. In the wedding day a couple is accompanied by boyfriends, girlfriends, matchmakers, heads. Wedding is full of merry and plaintive songs, dances, games, funs, jokes. Not a single wedding goes without korovay or kalach( wedding bread), embroidered or woven towels, bouquets pinned to clothes of guests and wedding tree. Set time for the wedding day was not arranged exactly, but marriage proposal and betrothing took a place mainly in spring, in summer, in autumn, rarer in winter, and weddings tried to arrange to the Lent. During Lent any wedding ceremony was forbidden. When matchmakers came they” have been given embroidered towels”, that traditionally meant to prepare to wedding. Fixing of marriage was and remains for the couple to «stand on a towel».

Preparation to Christmas celebration begins preliminary in this region. According to the ancient tradition a sapling (diduh) is weaved from straw. People believe that souls of grandfathers-great-grandfathers, guardians of house live there. Hostesses light the «living fire» in a stove with twelve logs and prepare twelve sacral lean foods on January,6.

Kutya (boiled wheat porriage with honey, poppy and nuts) is the main dish on the table among other dishes during the Sainted Supper. Some researchers of folk customs consider that kutya is an echo of friendly dinners arranged in the days of Martyrs for Christ faith funerals. Wheat as a grain comes back to life annually, that is why it is a symbol of eternity, and honey is a symbol of eternal happiness of righteous men in the sky.

On January, 7, the real Christmas celebration begins. Hutsuls visit the relatives and friends, going from village to the village and singing “kolyadki”. The majority of people are sledging harnessed with horses and decorated with bluebells.

Seven days after Christmas, on January, 14, people celebrate Old New Year, on January, 18 Hutsuls keep the fast all day long,and on January, 19  they celebrate Christening or «Yordan». The families have a supper when the first star appears on the sky.  

Established by Christian Church in honor of Christ resurrection the feast of Easter is characterized by the ceremonial actions and national customs.

On Willow Sunday (Verbna Nedilya) Hutsuls bring the sanctified pussy-willow branches (b’iechka) from a church, tap slightly one another, repeating the wish: “Be as tall as the willow, as healthy as the water and as rich as the earth. Not I am tapping, the willow is tapping. Easter is in a week!”

A Lent is a time when pysankys(painted and decorated eggs) are making. Every village has its own masters. Easter begins with the matins and high mass, during which the pasky (traditional Easter dreads), pysanky and krashanky are blessed in the church. Butter, leaf lard, cheese, sausage, smoked meat, and little napkins containing poppy seeds, horse-radish and other provisions are also blessed. Horse-radish symbolizes the bitterness of Christ passions and waxed candle is the symbol of divine light and Christ resurrection. Rich proprietors rode to the church on the horses or in the decorated cart, and the poor citizens walked on foot.

The celebration of City Day on the last Sunday of July has become a good tradition. At that time different performances, kid’s entertainment, folk festivals take place on the squares of the city. Public merry-making and fireworks complete this celebration. The fairs of handicrafts and folk art work during celebrations. Add to it unique nature and crisp mountain air and you will understand that any celebration in Yaremche can apply on the rank of the real standard of hospitality.

Yaremchanschina is one of basic recreation districts of Carpathian area and in Ukraine. Mild climate, forest arrays, water resources, medical springs, numerous nature protection objects, historical and cultural monuments are the natural recreation resources of this territory.

All conditions are created for the rest In Yaremche: from fashionable hotels, modern tourist complexes to the comfortable farmsteads.  It is a remarkable place for hikes and walks which make a deeper acquaintance of this land and its inhabitants. For sharp feelings lovers the best choice is a jeep - safari, trips on quadrocycles, bicycle and horse-riding routes, canoe-rowing along the mountain’s rivers. As soon as snows, the supporters of active rest enjoy all of gladness of white winter - skiing, sledging, skating and driving snowmobiles.

 

 

Pedestrian walks

Hikes on foot in Carpathian Mountains are possible from May to October. It is worth remembering that there is much snow on the hills in May, and in October the temperature of air goes down considerably, especially at night-time.

Walking is better with a guide who can be easily found in local tourist agency.  

The most popular and interesting walking routes pass through the territory of the National Natural Carpathian Park, through the mountain ranges of Chernogora and Gorgan.

 

 

Water routes

The end of April – the beginning of May is the best time for canoe-rowing in Carpathian’s e rivers, during a flood, when melting of snows is the most intensive. It considers first of all the Prut river and its tributaries, which are suitable for rowing only during a few spring days. The rivers of Carpathians can be a wonderful place for seasonable preparation to the hikes of the greatest category of complication.

 

 

A water-rowing on catamarans is offered for holiday-makers from Vorokhta to Kolomiyai   96 km long.  Duration of route is 6 days. Favorable time is a middle of April and May. A protective waterproof suit is necessarily needed in April. The highway passes along all the route and, that is why it is recommended to have any kind of vehicle (minibus, car). A route foresees passing of waterfall Hasp in Yaremche (8 m high).

 

Fishing

A pond economy is located 5 km far from Vorokhta and its proprietor is Ozerne Forestry under the Vorokhta authority. There is parking, camps and cottages of forest ranger on the territory. Fishing is conducted from April to September. It is possible to fish a carp, European carp, amur and trout. Fishers have to have their own fishing-rods.

 

 

Winter types of rest

Relief of territory and duration of snow cover is advantageous for the development of different kinds of mountain-skiing.

There is much snow in winter in Carpathian Mountains, skiing and sledging is possible during 5 months - from November to April. Fresh clean air, mountains and warm wine in a good company makes the guests forget about troubles and enjoy the beauty of nature.

For every tourist –either beginner, or experienced skier - it is possible to find the proper condition for skiing and sledging. The most famous places for winter kinds of sport are:

-Yaremche: small lifts;

-Yablunytsa: rope – seated lifts (mountains Koza, Mykulinka, Dil);

-Vorokhta: complex of springboards, two suspended rope-seated lifts, one of which conduces to the ski stadium;

-Polyanytsa: complex of rope – seated self-control lifts («Bukovel').

 It is possible to rent ski equipment, snowboards, snowmobiles and snowtubes (inflatable chambers with plastic bottom). In all of the centers the equipment and lessons of skiing is possible to order right there in the place.