Besides the religious and national holidays of Easter, Christmas, Constitution Day, and Independence Day, Ukraine celebrates a number of traditional cultural festivities some of which date back to pagan times.

Ivana Kupala Night – a celebration that relates to the summer solstice and the birth of the summer sun – Kupalo, and involves a number of Slavic rituals, including herb collecting, bathing in a river, and bonfire lighting, during which young people jump over the flames of bonfires in a ritual test of bravery and faith.

Then there is Wet Monday. ​ Slavic tradition had it that pouring water on women was a specifically male prerogative in order to “purify” them on the first Monday after Easter Sunday. Today the tradition is no longer gender specific as everybody that participates gets wet.

And we have the 13 January New Year’s tradition of Malanka, an ancient holiday that combines Christian and pagan traditions during which celebrants don masks including grandpas and grandmas, gypsies with wheat straw bears, kings and queens, horses, and doctors to mark the beginning of the New Year.

In late February or early March Masnytsia AKA Butter Week is feted.  It is an ancient Eastern Slavic holiday honoring the advent of Spring during which the fare are dishes made with cheese and butter including varenyky (dumplings), pancakes, syrnyky (cottage cheese pancakes), and various desserts. Ancient Slavs believed that the more fun they have on Masnytsia – the more successful and plentiful the following year will be.