Form 4. Easter in Ukraine

For pupils of the fourth (4-th) form.

Easter in Ukraine

Easter is a great holiday. We celebrate this holiday in April. In Ukraine people make baskets. They cook Easter cakes called ‘paskas’. They paint eggs beautifully. A coloured egg is called “pysanka’. Pysanka is the traditional Ukrainian Easter egg. Ukrainian people put Easter cake, some sausage, Easter eggs, some ham, some cheese, some butter and salt into their baskets. On Easter Sunday they usually go to church with their baskets, give thanks to God / Christ and sing Easter songs. After that each family has a holiday lunch or dinner. The first Easter meal begins with an Easter egg. The head of the family cuts it into small pieces and gives them to each member of the family with the words “Khrystos Voskres!” (“Christ has risen” [riz(ǝ)n)]).

In the Ukrainian town of Kolomya there is a pysanka museum, the only museum of this kind in Ukraine. Its collection contains more than 10 000 pysankas from every region of Ukraine.