(21 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kyiv – 21 June 2025
1. Various of festival-goers relaxing on a grassy field at the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv
2. Various of women and girls creating wreaths woven from colourful wildflowers, to put on their heads
3. Various of Sofia Orel and her friend creating wreaths
4. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Sofia Orel, Midsummer festival goer:
“Yes, in fact I really want to (to maintain Ukrainian traditions). Especially since the war started it is crucial to support Ukrainian culture and traditions because this way we preserve what is ours, so this is very important to my mind. To be honest, as I am weaving a wreath, I’m thinking that I will teach my daughter how to do it. These are our traditions and they have to be passed on and honoured.”
5. Mid of Sofia Orel and her friend creating wreaths
6. Wide of Ukrainians watching festival on slope
7. Mid of musicians singing traditional song
8. Various of people enjoying music and capturing it on their phones
9. Various of musicians singing Ukrainian traditional songs
10. Mid of Ukrainians resting at the festival
11. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Saba Alekseev, Midsummer festival goer:
“It’s good that there is an opportunity to go here, distract yourself, breathe some fresh air without thinking about it (the war), for some time at least, because it’s impossible to put it out of your mind under shelling.”
12. Various of men making fire with the friction of wood
13. Various of woman lighting bonfire
14. Various of crowd holding hands and dancing as music plays
STORYLINE:
Hundreds of Ukrainians observed the longest day of the year on Saturday with a midsummer celebration of some of their oldest traditions, a display of cultural perseverance in a nation threatened by war.
Rooted in Ukraine’s ancient past of Slavic paganism the event, Ivana Kupala, features rituals and symbolism to honor the summer solstice, related to fertility, nature, purity and renewal — values that predate the region’s Christianization at the end of the first millennium.
At the open-air National Museum of Folk Architecture and Ukrainian Life on the outskirts of Kyiv, participants in embroidered shirts and blouses strolled among thatched-roof cottages, wooden churches and windmills dating to the 18th and 19th centuries.
Women and girls wore vinoks — wreaths made from wildflowers — as they took part in folk dances, games and craft workshops.
As the sun began to set over the wheat fields and wildflower meadows, hundreds formed a circle around a pyramid of logs.
When the bonfire was lit, flames climbed into the twilight sky as music swelled and people spun around the pyre hand in hand. In a purification rite, some leapt over the burning embers.
With Russia’s war in Ukraine now in its fourth year and aerial attacks on cities intensifying, for some the observance of old folk customs holds deeper meaning.
Saba Alekseev, 25, said the event gave her a chance to “breathe some fresh air without thinking about (the war), for some time at least, because it’s impossible to put it out of your mind under shelling.”
For 18-year-old Sofia Orel, it was a reminder that "it is crucial to support Ukrainian culture and traditions, especially since the war started, because this way we preserve what is ours.”
“As I am weaving a wreath, I’m thinking that I will teach my daughter how to do it," she said. "These are our traditions and they have to be passed on and honored.”
AP Video shot by Alex Babenko, produced by Yahor Konovalov
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