The holiday of Ivana Kupala for students of KhNMU

On the night of July 6 to 7, the feast of Ivana Kupala is celebrated – a traditional event with ancient roots. Despite the war in the country, on July 6, the social education and volunteering sector of the Student Government of the KhNMU was able to unite and organize an incredibly solemn holiday for students offline.

The official part of the celebration of Ivana Kupala began in the afternoon of July 6 and lasted until the beginning of darkness. The organizers prepared a recreation area in advance, decorated the territory with festive ribbons, made orientations for the location of various flowers. The students were divided into groups so that everyone could collect flowers and other attributes of the forest to create a festive wreath, in which they could put all their love and positive emotions. After the collection of flowers, master classes on wreath-weaving techniques were held, which brought the participants of the holiday closer to the history of our country by creating attributes that were used by Ukrainians many centuries ago.

The students continued their union with nature by holding the Hutsul dance “Arkan” and creating general photos of the participants. After that, there was preparation for the main part of the holiday – the burning of Marena. The boys prepared a fire, assembled and installed the figure of the winter deity. Everyone stood around Marena, lit a fire, took each other’s hands and began to dance around, singing traditional songs. Everyone present said goodbye to negative thoughts and memories, threw things related to unpleasant stages of their life into the fire and wished others good wishes. As soon as Marena finished burning, the most intriguing stage of the evening began – jumping over the bonfire. Everyone came holding hands and supporting each other.

The Ivana Kupala holiday was a great success, and the revival of ancient traditions delighted the souls of all event participants. At the end, the students sat by the fire and sang patriotic Ukrainian songs to the guitar, thanked our defenders, volunteers and all Ukrainians who rallied in a difficult time and continue to give each other their love, protection, and the opportunity to hold such events.