“It is up to us now”

Over the nine years the festival Kraina mrii, which last weekend has again taken place at the capital’s Spivoche Pole (Singing field), has become for many Kyivites a top event of summer. At first it attracted by its exotic: vechornytsi-streets, which were the start to everything, in the heart of a megalopolis. Now Kraina mrii is the Ukrainian world where you want to be, where one feels naturally and breathes freely.

Over almost a decade the festival has been changing, changing us at the same time. Those have been lessons of how to be a Ukrainian taught in an available means, via ethno-style, such as music, dances, style, and decor.

“Owing to Kraina mrii, our family turned into ‘true Ukrainians,’” a private entrepreneur Nadia PODOLIANKO recollected, “At first we liked the atmosphere, its ingenuousness and sincerity. A year after that we bought vyshyvankas for each of our kids: they put them on right away. Then I started to use earthenware not only as a decoration, but in our everyday life. Going somewhere in my car I switched on Mandry, VV, Tartak, TNMK, Okean Elzy. At some point of time I understood that this is my country. So, I started to popularize all things Ukrainian, without theatrics, so to say on my territory: I buy produce of home companies (it is often of higher quality than foreign products), CDs by our musicians, DVDs with Hollywood movies with Ukrainian dubbing, books by Yurii Andrukhovych, Maria Matios, Oksana Zabuzhko, Taras Prokhasko, Serhii Zhadan, and the books from The Day’s Library, by the way, I subscribe to Ukrainian-language periodicals. Incidentally, your newspaper carried a topical publication called ‘Are you ready to fight for freedom? And pay for it?’ So it is up to us now.”

“We need to broaden the festival’s territory,” publishers Dmytro and Vitalii Kapranovs went on, “For two days the country is the way we want to see it. So the task for each of us is to build around ourselves a little dreamland. We – for ourselves, and you – for yourselves. Then they may be linked into one like islands into an archipelago, for the territory damaged by the Soviet mentality will shrink. And it does not matter if your territory will differ from ours. Most importantly, we will hold similarities in the main things: language, non-rewritten history and culture.”

“We need to learn to respect ourselves,” cinematographer Olha Hodovanets added, “to understand that we are the best and our children are the best, and go on with focusing these feelings on the Ukrainian language, history, and culture. For if we keep silent when humiliated, keeping our heads low, our neighbors will get used to it. You may lose some material welfare, but the honor remains. Moreover, we will save our dignity. As is known, you are respected only if you respect yourself.”

In a nutshell, time has come for responsibility and constructive actions. And these actions may be different: to do your work in a quality way, go to the Verkhovna Rada walls, when it will try to vote the Kolesnichenko-Kivalov draft law on language; buy Ukrainian goods, and after all vote at this year’s parliamentary elections with great responsibility. Otherwise, the Kraina mrii territory will remain a model for real Ukraine.