Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments at christopher.gajda@yahoo.com

Friday, September 12, 2014

Feast of John the Baptist, Part II

Walking along the Korzo, I found the Vishyvanka studio, specializing in hand-made clothing and rushniks. The owner speaks English, and and is very willing to explain about their products.  
I learned that the very first blouse I asked about (in first photo below) was the most expensive he had in the store. It sold for about $300 USD. What made it so expensive was that everything was hand-made, in the home. Even the cloth, a linen and cotton blend, was made in the home. And naturally all the embroidery was done by hand.


The dresses below also look like they may have been made of a home-spun fabric. I think they sold for about $150 - $175 USD.


The blouse below was also all made by hand, home woven linen/cotton cloth. It's price was $200. There were some less expensive shirts, blouses, and dress, like the ones with the red roses beside the blouse below; but these look like they were embroidered by machine, and are made of machine made cloth.


Across the Korzo from Vishyvanka was a cafe; I sat there a while just taking random photos of Ukrainians walking along the street.





















 When this man saw me taking a photo of him taking a photo, he had a big laugh.







There is a toy store on Petofi Square, near the "marshrutka" mini-bus stand, for the bus to Dravtsi. It's easy to find because of it's dragon sign.

At the marshrutka bus stop:



Back in Dravtsi, had dinner, then went to the Church with Klara for choir practice. I don't know the reason, but everyone handed me a single walnut. I have no idea what the significance of this custom is, but Ileft with my pockets full of walnuts.

 Half of the choir were my relatives - Klara, Bela, Marta, Natasha, Tanya. There are only about 15 people in the choir, but with the acoustics of the church, they sound like a much larger choir. They've got a really demanding choir director, but it pays off, as their singing is really impressive. I made recordings of their singing; unfortunately, I used Windows Sound Recorder, and I'm unable to use Sound Recorder files for this blog, for YouTube, for Movie Maker, or anything else. The only thing you can do with Sound Recorder is play back a recording......in Sound Recorder............whoopee.





After practice, the choir met downstairs in one of the back rooms of the church, for cognac, vodka, cookies, and candy. Nice little party.








No comments:

Post a Comment