In search of the magical fern

For the first time, on the night of July 7 Kyiv celebrated the feast of Ivan Kupalo on Trukhaniv Island. Once a pagan fertility rite associated with The Day of the summer solstice, this yearly celebration now coincides with the Christian feast marking the birth of St. John the Baptist. Hundreds of people came to search for tsvit paporoti. According to a Ukrainian folk legend, once a year this fern blooms with tiny nettle-like flowers that burn like fire.

This year’s celebration was held under the auspices of the celebrated Ukrainian folk singer Nina Matviyenko. The extravaganza began on Andriyivsky Uzviz, from where the revelers walked to Trukhaniv Ostriv. Ms. Matviyenko cut quite a figure: this delicately-built woman wearing a Ukrainian headscarf, arrived in the company of some long-limbed young fellows on bikes adorned with Kupalo- style herbs.

Trukhaniv Island has never before seen this kind of merrymaking. There were people of all ages and walks of life: from gray-haired old men, who brought their grandchildren to see the celebration, to students, who willingly abandoned their discotheques to partake in this spectacle. Everybody could take part in the celebration and join in a ring-dance: all you needed was the desire. One incentive was the three bonfires over which boys and girls eagerly jumped in an attempt to guess their future. Ancient traditions say that if a boy and a girl manage to keep their hands clasped when they jump over the fire, they are destined to marry.

“This feast is like remembering my childhood,” People’s Artist of Ukraine Nina Matviyenko told The Day. “I can remember the large hillocks in our graveyard, where a church used to stand. It was a place where young people would gather. Old cart wheels were set on fire and sent rolling down one of the hillocks. Set on top of this was an effigy, a big rag doll. I still remember the way the effigy was made: a sack was filled with rags and tied with string. Then someone would make a head for the doll.

“It was great. And believe me! I can’t forget it, even though I was a small child at the time. Then I was literally torn from that village and placed in a boarding school, and that was the end of it. Today, my children and I visit the places of my youth. They are the continuation of my childhood and adolescence. There is an ardent desire to live and thank the heavens that we are alive today and can sense the paradise in this environment of living nature.

“It is wonderful that Kyiv still has nooks where we can talk to a little tree, a child, and every tiny bug. Now look at these lampposts. They also stir up memories. I wish I could see storks nesting on them. We have traveled across Ukraine on bikes and seen a lot of nests like that. And while there are nests, Ukraine continues to be. And our children are sure to realize our dream and give birth to their own children, who will in turn preserve and reinforce our Ukraine.

“Late at night, after Kupalo was drowned, the girls went to the Dnipro, with candles lit with living fire, and each of them placed a garland on the water. The burning effigy that the surprised river joyfully carried away was quite a sight. I was thrilled to see so many people today on the island, who came to revive our ancestor’s traditions, especially the small children and teenaged girls, who were gathering fragrant flowers and learning to braid their first wreaths. I hope this day becomes a national holiday.”

After the main celebrations, many people stayed behind on the banks of the Dnipro until daybreak to see with their own eyes the truth of the old legend that on this day the sun “plays” at dawn: it shimmers with all the colors of the rainbow and dips into the water, only to surface again, as though it is bathing. To meet the sun at this moment is a stroke of luck for a person.