How to celebrate birthdays in Ukraine
Birthdays are a big deal in Ukraine.
…as are all holidays, from Malanka to Easter to Christmas to name days. But today, let’s talk about birthdays. It seems like half my friends and family have had birthdays in the last couple months, so I thought I’d reflect on some of the lessons I learned about celebrating birthdays while in Ukraine.
Buy so many balloons.
How is anyone going to know it’s your birthday (and yes, you want people to know it’s your birthday) unless you’re carrying a bunch of balloons down the cobblestone streets while linked arms with your best friend?
Any occasion, not just birthdays, calls for balloons in Ukraine — especially balloons that light up. Hannah and Natalya got these on one of our last nights in Ukraine.
When we were living in Kyiv and training with the Virsky Studio dancers, my friend Natalya (fellow Canadian) celebrated her birthday. Sometime before, it came up in a conversation with some of the dancers, and then of course on her birthday, they brought 10+ balloons and a bouquet of flowers for her, someone they met only a couple weeks before.
(Actually, they did this before her birthday, but they thought they were doing so on the proper day, so hopefully they didn’t get any bad luck because of it — more on that below).
But the thing is, I think these balloons were less of a gift for Natalya and more of a photos prop for the gift givers.
So for many reasons, balloons are a must-have birthday item because elaborate impromptu photoshoots are just as important as acknowledging someone’s birthday.
Do not wish someone a Happy Birthday before the actual day.
This is the superstition I was alluding to earlier.
You must not, under any circumstance, wish someone an early happy birthday. Unless you want bad luck, that is.
In some cases, birthdays were barely even mentioned, just talked about in passing so people knew what to expect on the day of if there was a celebration, for example.
It may be your birthday, But you’re giving the gifts.
Well, gifts as in a stellar party and an open bar.
The story that stands out to me that illustrates this well is when we celebrated the birthday of a dancer from the Bukovyna State Ensemble.
A birthday girl on the streets of Chernivtsi with a wandering pup who stopped to send its best wishes.
Within the first few days of meeting the dancers of the ensemble, Vasya asked us if we were free on a certain evening since he’d be celebrating his 35th (I think) birthday. We were touched to be included and quickly realized this was all part of the friendly Bukovyna hospitality we’d get to know so well during our entire time in Chernivtsi.
The day finally arrived, and some of the other dancers arranged a ride for us to get to the venue. We had no idea what type of a venue we were going to. We were under the impression it was a restaurant just outside the city, so we dressed up but not too fancy, nervous to stand out if it were a more casual affair.
(Though we should have known better since with any celebration in Ukraine, there’s a good chance you’ll always be under dressed, as they are some of the most stylish people around.)
We met the dancers who arranged our ride at the dance studio. And then more came, and then a couple more, making us wonder what type of giant vehicle was going to fit us all.
Turns out, the 14 of us fit into a nine-passenger van, some people having to sit on each other’s laps.
It was an experience, especially because we still didn’t know what to expect of the evening.
Finally, we arrived at the venue. We walked inside.
What greeted us was a hall decorated as elaborately as for a wedding, and that’s basically the best way to describe this night — like a wedding, an open-bar wedding, even with a presentation line where the birthday boy hugged everyone as they came in, collecting bouquets and giant gifts.
We ate. We danced. We drank (including three horilka shots in 10 minutes, as my journal reminded me). We sang karaoke. We learned Romanian words from Vasya’s brother-in-law.
We had a good time.
So, yes, while you can expect to get gifts from your family and friends on your birthday, they can also expect some birthday hospitality from you.
Happy Birthday Isn’t the Only Birthday Song
There’s the Bukovyna birthday clapping song. There’s “Mnohaya Lita.” There’s “Mnohaya Lita” but with a little dance and tickle. That’s right — “Happy Birthday” isn’t the only birthday song.
In January and February, my friend Kaitlyn and I experienced the Bukovyna birthday clapping song in all its glory. The accordion player who accompanied class led the melody, with everyone clapping along — daaaaa daa daa da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da daaaaa daaaaa da da da.
If you hear it once, you’ll never forget it. (It’s not actually a song original to the ensemble — I’m not sure if it’s from a TV show or what, but we heard it a couple times throughout our year, just not in a birthday song context like in Chernivtsi.)
Just to expand on celebrating my birthday in Chernivtsi, the same day also happened to be our final rehearsal with the Buko ensemble. I was lucky enough to be thrown into a couple extra dances in rehearsal that day, then at night we hosted some dancers over for our bimonthly going away party, one in every city we lived in.
This is the ideal birthday celebration for me — marking it in some way but sliding the party in with some other event to take the attention off me. Truly meant to be.
Back to the birthday songs.
Celebrating Hannah’s post-Virsky birthday bash with the Volyn dancers at Luchesk Pub, one of our favourites.
In March, my friend Hannah was treated to a glorious rendition of “Mnohaya Lita” by the Volyn State Ensemble, plus we watched Virsky perform in Lutsk before hanging out to celebrate Hannah’s big day at one of our favourite pubs (Luchesk) with dancers from both the Volyn ensemble and Virsky.
In May and June, we celebrated birthdays of dancers in the Poltava Song & Dance Ensemble, singing “Mnohaya Lita” while holding hands in a circle then going in to tickle the birthday celebrator who stood in the middle.
Maybe it’s time we make up our own exclusive birthday song in Manitoba.
You Can Turn Any Room into a Dyskoteka for a Birthday
This rule proved itself true on two artistic director birthday celebrations, the first in Chernivtsi and the second in Poltava.
On my birthday, the same day as our going away party, we introduced our friends in Chernivtsi to the wonderful world of jello shots.
In Chernivtsi, after practice, we all sat around in the men’s changeroom, a spread of bread, mayo, probably some chicken, and vodka covering the table. People made toasts to the director, people sang songs, and people chatted about life. So I guess this wasn’t a party-party dyskoteka but we definitely were transported from a smelly boys dressing room.
In Poltava, the studio truly transformed into something else. We ended practice early, and after changing into our street clothes, the transformation began in the studio. Someone put a board on top of a couple theatre chairs, usually found off to the side of the space, to create a makeshift banquet table. The ladies put together sandwiches. The guys got the drinks ready. Pan Perepelkin, the director of the Poltava ensemble, carved what I remember as approximately six roast chickens.
Then the dyskoteka part came in — a couple of the dancers were also in a dance theatre troupe and started to lead us in some of their jazz-hip-hop-Ukrainian blend of dance moves. We followed along as best as we could — stomp-clap-stomp-clap-stomp-clap-stomp forwards then backwards and repeat. It was exhausting, requiring us to take some breaks outside for fresh air, where we then proceeded to teach the Poltava ensemble line dances we knew from Canada.
Maybe these don’t sound like extravagant celebrations — they happened three years ago so (sadly) the details are getting foggy — but believe me when I say they sure don’t compare to any birthday celebrations I’ve attended in Canada, for colleagues (as was the case for the dancers) or for friends.
I don’t think I realized until now how many of my memories from that year away are fading. Because while I can’t recall some details, the feelings are all still there. It’s not so much that I have to think about these moments to remember — I simply have to feel into them, and it brings me right back to the exact moment.
But of course you can’t feel my feelings, so I’ll still keep trying to explain them to you.
My first birthday back in Canada, surrounded by friends and family after a performance with Troyanda Ukrainian Dance Ensemble.
I’m so happy and proud I stuck with journaling and writing on my blog while in Ukraine — and I mean this for selfish reasons. There have been a few times when I was researching this thing or that and went straight to my blog as a reference since I knew I did at least a bit of research on it before. Or, something that happened quite recently, someone asked me a random Ukrainian dance-related question, and I didn’t see their text right away, but shortly after they messaged me back with a screenshot of something I wrote on my blog, something that answered their question.
Why am I going on about this?
I’m going on about this because I want to thank you for reading this post or every post, for skimming it or absorbing every word.
You give me a reason to write. And I appreciate that. I appreciate you.