Ukraine is a devoutly Christian country, mostly Orthodox but Catholic as well. Depending on your faith, you can attend any number of church services. Now, I’m not a very church-going guy on most occasions but, as curiosity would strike me, I wanted to see what a Ukrainian Easter service looked and felt like.
There was a church not far from my apartment which would host an Easter service on Saturday night. I’ve been to Easter services here in Canada and figured it couldn’t be much different. On Good Friday you have have the crucifixion, Saturday you bless baskets, and on Sunday you get up early and witness the resurrection of JC.
Ukraine was a little different.
Although I missed the Good Friday service because of work (how religious can this country be?) I was informed that the Easter service would begin at 11 pm on Saturday night. Strange time, I thought, maybe it’s one of those “welcome in the new day” services. Well, it kinda was. The service was going to be 5 hours long. Of course, I wasn’t alone. I had befriended a lovely woman (Файна Дівчина) who was living in my area and we attended the service together.
As with many other European churches, the church was ornate in its appearance with a massive chandelier suspended from the decorated roof. Wood carvings of the saints stood along the sides of the icons on the wall. The church itself, although seemingly large from the outside, wasn’t very big inside. I estimate that roughly 450 people crammed themselves, standing, into the length and width of two classrooms. More people stood outside. It was like a religious mosh pit. I’ve never seen that many people crowd around an alter before.
Not only that, the choir did all the singing and responses with the priest while the congregation stood silently and watched. No wonder one of my students was proud when she said that she sung in the choir. They are the designated church inter-actors. The crowd’s voice was eventually released toward the end of the liturgy when they belted out “Christos Voskres!” (“Christ is risen!”) Again, it reminded of a rock concert, except the crowd was older.
I made it through 3.5 hours of the service before I gave up and went back to my apartment. I made coffee for the both of us while we discussed religion and its traditions. We returned later for the blessing of the food. That part only took 15 seconds: Christos Voskres, Voyeestiny Voskres, (“Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!”) two massive splashes of water (one on your food, the other in your face), and it’s done. Go home and eat.
With that, me and my partner went back to my apartment and enjoyed the blessed food, including, you guessed it, vodka and paska. If there’s one time you must go to Ukraine and enjoy the food it’s around Easter. Canadian Easter bread, called paska or babka, tastes like bread with a a lot of egg. In Ukraine, however, paska is a dessert served after the Easter meal. Eggy-bread pock-marked with raisins and topped with egg-white icing and sprinkles. Amazing, folks, just amazing. Ukraine can’t be that backward if they got this bread going for them. You don’t need to learn much Ukrainian to get this meal going for you: horilka, paska, bood laska! (trans.: vodka, paska, please!)
We made plans to get together later in the day to go horseback riding. Apparently she had never ridden a horse before, which I thought was strange.
We arrived at Gorky Park where we found the horse riding place. The horse trip lasted an hour and would take us through the whole park. I’ll admit I felt kinda out of place. Here I was, a grown man out with his pink-shoe wearing lady friend and some other kid and her parents. Not only that, I didn’t understand or speak much Russian. Who knew what these former communists were talking about, right?
The first half of the trip went pretty smoothly, parading our horses through the centre of the park, then along the river where we would see many parties going on around campfires, and then met a little dog that insisted at barking at the horses which scared the horses and nearly flung the little girl on the horse in front of us into the air. Then about half way through the trip, after graciously giving a baby a ride on the horse, my horse stops. In the middle of the field, surrounded by Russians and Ukrainians, all looking at me in wonder. I kinda felt like Mr. Orange in Reservoir Dogs during the commode story.
Since the rest of my group, including my lady friend, had continued on without noticing my broken down horse, one lady got up and approached the horse and found out I didn’t speak Russian or Ukrainian. I’m not entirely sure what she said but I’m sure the Russian word for “foreigner” came out at some point. That’s when I felt I was being laughed at.
But the horse just did not want to go. Prodding, clicking my tongue, pulling on its main, speaking broken Russian and making quiet death threats in English (“I can and will eat you if you don’t cooperate.”) Finally one of the trainers came back and helped me. It only took them five minutes to notice that I wasn’t with the group.
An hour later we got back to the starting point. Paying the folks and taking a few more pictures, we went for a walk through the massive park. She showed me an old train station and pointed in the direction of some war memorial (I forget which one.) We kept walking and talking, her ably practising her English, me stumbling along in my Ukrainian and, horror of horrors, Russian.
We took the park sky-trolly (10 UAH, or $1.25) to the other side of the park where I inquired if there was a place that served pizza and beer. In fact there was a pizzeria called “Buffet”, or, in Russian, Буфет. It’s probably best described as “slow fast-food.” Although they make the pizza in-house and it isn’t very greasy, they garnish it with mayonnaise. It’s relatively cheap, too. Half a pizza is 10 UAH while a full pizza is 20 UAH, though some toppings require another 2 UAH or so. Beer and other bevies were around 5 UAH. I found my new favourite place to eat, much healthier than the Kulynichi, grilled chicken, or even the kebabs I’d come to love on the streets of Kharkiv.
To say the least it was an eventful Easter in Kharkiv. After attending church, swigging horilka, riding horses and talking in Ukrainian and Russian, my brain was right proper hurting. It was time to get some rest.