Culture of Ukraine
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Religion is also practiced throughout the country—Orthodox Christianity and Uniate are the two most widely practised religions; Protestantism and Judaism are also well represented. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the largest in the country. Faithful of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the second largest, practice Orthodox rites but are united with the Roman Catholic Church.
Ukrainians generally carry themselves in a very polite, civilized manner. Men always hold the door open for a woman when she enters a building, stand up when a woman enters the room, and, if there is a shortage of seats, will give up their seats to the women. In rural areas men will sometimes kiss a woman's hand, but this is starting to go out of fashion.
Some rules to remember in Ukraine
- Never shake hands and offer anything over a threshold
- Never drink your host under the table
- Never put an empty bottle on the table
- Never get a young unmarried woman to sit at the corner of the table
- Always bring an odd number of flowers to a house (even numbers are considered unlucky)
- When passing through the aisles of a theatre, always face the people sitting down
- Always greet and say good-bye when visiting
- Women often greet each other with a kiss or a hug
- Always say please (bud’ laska), thank you (dyakuyu), and you're welcome (proshu)
Cuisine
Cultural food is an important part to the Ukrainian culture. Special foods are used at Easter as well as Christmas, that are not made at any other time of the year. At Christmas time, for example, they make kutya, a mixture of cooked buckwheat groats, poppy seeds, and honey, and special sweet breads.
Ukrainians eat a lot of sausages, fish, and cheeses. Bread is a core part of every meal, and must be included for the meal to be "complete." They enjoy having variety in meals. While simple, they try to have more than one course. At Christmas time, for example, it is tradition to have a twelve-course meal. Included at Easter are the famous Pysanky (coloured and patterned eggs). Making these eggs is a long but fun process, and they are not actually eaten, but displayed in the centre of the table (usually around the bread).
Ukrainians always toast to good health, linger over their meal, and engage in lively conversation with family or friends. Often they will drink tea (chai), wine, or coffee afterwards with a simple dessert, such as a fruit pastry.
The most well known foods:
- Borshch (a vegetable soup, usually with beets)
- Holobtsi (cabbage rolls stuffed with rice and meat usually)
- Varenyky (often called perogies)
- Pyrohy (a fried, dessert version of verenyky, filled with fruit instead of meat or cheese)
Dance
A Ukrainian style of dancing is called Kalyna. Both men and women participate in this type of dancing.
- The women wear colourful costumes, sometimes featuring a solid-coloured (usually blue, green, red, or black) tunic and matching apron, and under that an open skirt, and below that a white skirt with an embroidered hem that should reach an inch or so below the knee. If they wear a tunic, then under that they wear a long-sleeved richly embroidered white shirt. Traditionally, women wear a type of red leather boots to dance in. They also wear a beautiful flower head piece, that is a headband covered with flowers and has long flowing ribbons down the back that flow when they dance, and plain red coral necklaces.
- The men wear baggy pants (usually blue, white, black or red) and a shirt (usually white, but sometimes black) embroidered at the neck and down the stomach. Over the shirt they sometimes will wear a richly embroidered vest. Around their waist they wear a thick sash with fringed ends. Like the women, they wear boots, but these can be black or white in addition to red.
- Kalyna dancing involves partner dancing. One dance, called the previtanya, is a greeting dance. It is slow and respectful, the women bow to the audience and present bread with salt on a cloth and flowers. Another, called the hopak is much more lively, and involves many fast-paced movements. Hence hopak as a dance is derived from hopak martial art of Cossacks.
Weddings
Weddings traditionally take place in churches, the bride in white and the groom in black. Wedding celebrations are known to continue for days, even a week. They are accompanied by lively music and dancing, drinking and eating, and fellowship. Some particular wedding customs include:
- Before the wedding, the groom goes with his friends to the bride's house and bargains with "money' to get a bride from her family.
- When leaving the church, the bride carries a basket of candies or sweets to throw to children and the crowd
- The groom carries her down any stairs
- At the reception, the bride dances with each of the unmarried women present, and places a special veil on each of them. This veil symbolises that they are still pure, but that the bride hopes they will get married soon. She also throws a bunch of flower and the girl who catches it first will likely to be next to marry.
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