Holidays Our Way: How Ukrainians Carolled in New York

Christmas star, embroidered shirts, shalyan shawls, masks with traditional characters of the den - this is what a carol in New York looks like. The tradition itself was founded almost a decade ago by the Voice of the Ukrainian Village collective. How caroling in New York during the pandemic was described by the publication “Voice of America".

“We walk the East Village to visit different families. We bring them our carols, show sketches, sing old carols, ”said the director of the collective Larisa Chebenyak.

Members of the folklore group drive a carriage in the eastern district of Manhattan, where many Ukrainian entrepreneurs are located and many Ukrainians live.

“They already know us here. We go every year. And they are already waiting for us, ”says Larisa.

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Every year the collective tries to add new carols to its repertoire.

“We have a lot of carols, but we always learn new ones,” said the director of the group.

This year, due to the pandemic, the carol was not so large-scale, they had to sing on the street.

The carolers received the most applause from the clients of the Ukrainian restaurant Veselka. Since it was not possible to do carols at home this year, we decided to carry the joy of Christmas with the help of a virtual carol.

“We have organized a virtual carol so people can order carols. It was possible to add special wishes - for family, employees. People were very happy, ”says Larisa.

Steftya Turenko is a Canadian of Ukrainian origin. She and her family took part in a virtual carol this year.

“I saw on Instagram that they made such a project. I was very interested and wanted this team to come to me with a Christmas carol, of course, via a computer, - Steftya explained. "I am very glad that they congratulated my whole family, because this year we could not all get together."

The virtual carriage turned out to be very popular, so Larisa does not exclude that next year they will continue this new tradition.