Vechornytsi
Encyclopedia
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
traditional gatherings with music, songs, jokes and rituals. It is derived from the Ukrainian word for evening.
Vechornitsy traditionally began in late September after the seasonal agricultural work was over. Young people from Ukrainian village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
s gathered in the evenings for entertainment. There were everyday and festive vechornytsi. During everyday parties people created folk art objects like rushnyky — embroidered towels, while entertaining themselves by singing songs or telling jokes. During festive vechornitsy rich dinner was cooked, and there was music and dancing. It was the ladies' responsibility to cook a dinner and the men's responsibility to provide everybody with music, drinks and sweets.
Vechornytsi were mainly for younger people. Here they not only entertained each other during long winter evenings, but also met new people, communicated more closely and found partners. Each street in a village had at least one house for vechornytsi. Even small remote farms could have a few houses for parties, because it was a custom that brothers and sisters could not attend the same vechornytsi.