In Remembrance

This past Sunday in Ukraine was an extension of Easter known as провидна, or Sending Off Sunday, a time for families to gather together and remember their deceased loved ones and ancestors.  It's similar to our Memorial Day, except a little more religiously vodka-soaked.  My friend and colleague, Ola, invited me out to her family's village of Petrovka to participate in the traditions out at the colorful little country cemetery:

On the walk to the graveyard, hoards of people migrated in the same direction with bouquets of flowers (especially gorgeous red tulips) and picnic baskets filled with food.  One of the more unique characteristics of Ukrainian cemeteries is the addition of small tables and benches next to each grave especially for times like these.  The families decorate the graves with flowers, candy, and dyed eggs, and then have a meal and more than a few vodka toasts (I was told no less than three will do) to celebrate their loved ones.  It's a really interesting atmosphere in start contrast to the more reserved forms of paying respect in our cemeteries back home:

The local Orthodox priest walks through the cemetery with some lovely Pious singing ladies and, for a few hryvnia out of your wallet, they'll sing a song and do a blessing at the grave of your choice.  I couldn't help but wonder if he dabbles in a bit of the vodka-custom as well.  I mean, what exactly is he hiding under all of those robes anyway!?  In any case, I felt that I had to go into stealth-mode to get a photo and a super short video of the hoopla as I'm pretty sure paparazzi-ing religious moments in a cemetery isn't the best way to make friends in Ukraine.  

In what could be considered a super hands-off approach to both Halloween and Easter combined, children go around with bags and collect all of the eggs and candies left on the graves after dutifully making the sign of the cross first.  Probably this has resulted in more than one tombstone show-down, but I didn't witness any of the action.

Afterwards, it was back to Ola's sister, Katcha's (and her husband, Sasha's), house for a barbecue:

I love heading out to Sasha and Katcha's home in Petrovka.  It's so cute and quaint, and the fresh country air surrounding the place is so refreshing!  We dined al fresco in their darling little outdoor dining room:

These ladies know how to celebrate life!  They're always so much fun:

In addition to the gorge-fest of food prepared by Katcha, we also had traditional Ukrainian shashlik, or barbecue, lovingly prepared for us by Sasha.  Seriously uh-may-zing.

For a while, the sun came out and I not only got to show off my gleaming white limbs, but I also got to don a traditional Crimean Tartar piece of headwear, which I think I pull off nicely:

And then the clouds gathered over the place and we drank and dined amongst the rolling thunder and soothing stream of rain:

Before heading back, we took one last little walk through their garden and into another seriously old graveyard just behind their house with the dog...with bellies full of shashlik and more, it was a much needed excursion before the ride back to Lugansk:

Celebrating the dead is no light business in this country, and it's so incredible to be a part of something so culturally important and traditionally different than what's considered "normal" to us in the West.  And to top it all off with a fabulous country barbecue, fantastic company, and some incredible shashlik, well, that's definitely Ukraine for you.