Panorama of the festival “Flowers of Ukraine – 2021”

Panorama of the festival “Flowers of Ukraine – 2021”.

19 June 2021 will go down in the history of Estonia’s Ukrainian community, especially its younger generation, as a day of extraordinarily high temperature – both on the thermometer and in emotion…

Tallinn saw an unusual +30°C, and an equally hot atmosphere filled the hall of Lindakivi Cultural Centre, where the Ukrainian Youth Association in Estonia, a member of the Association of Ukrainian Organisations, held another festival of children’s and youth creativity, which in the early 2000s received the beautiful, resonant name “Flowers of Ukraine”.

The opening ceremony was attended by First Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine in Estonia Leonid Tretiak. On behalf of Artjom Tepljuk, Adviser at the Cultural Diversity Department of the Estonian Ministry of Culture, a letter of greeting was read and a bouquet of flowers presented. The anthems of Estonia and Ukraine were played, and the festival “Flowers of Ukraine – 2021” was solemnly opened.

The festival broke through the strong web of the pandemic... as teaching at Sunday schools had been suspended and arts groups had also had to work remotely.

Talent, like a shoot in the soil, can push through strong barriers – and so it was in our case… Children and young people, their hearts full of inspiration to develop their talents, managed in a very short time to learn new works to share their skills with the audience…

This year’s programme was put together from applications by societies, communities and heads of creative groups. At its core was a performance by this year’s anniversary celebrant, the dance ensemble “Kolor” led by Nina Hets, which recently won the hearts of a large audience at a gala concert at Tallinn’s Salme Cultural Centre.

Our pride, a group unique among Sunday schools – the bandura ensemble and pupils of the Sunday school “Nadiia” – showed truly remarkable skill, having learned what was essentially a new programme in just a few joint rehearsals, with each song different in character, tempo and harmony. Sincere thanks for such skilful work to the ensemble’s artistic director Liudmyla Hramiak and the school’s teachers Alla Inno-Yakymenko and Tetiana Klymenko… Singers from the vocal ensemble of the “Vodohrai” Sunday school, led by Svitlana Stashkevych, also found time for rehearsals. Year after year the Sillamäe group shows skill and harmony, so even in a smaller line-up the performance of the children and their teacher was of a truly artistic standard. The society’s leadership, headed by Larysa Zhytnyk, organised a several-day educational and leisure trip to the Estonian capital for their pupils.

A real highlight of the concert was the performance of a small, delicate girl from Maardu, Anna Popovych, a pupil of the Sunday school of the society “Stozhary” led by Hanna Fedorak. To Skoryk’s unforgettable “Melody”, Anna recited Taras Shevchenko’s poem “Lileia”… I confess I have never in my life heard such insight into every word and thought of the Kobzar. It seemed as if before us stood a grown woman whose life was filled with the drama of Shevchenko’s work… An unusual silence fell over the hall; the girl so enchanted us with her “Lileia” that we could not move.

Surely, had the most demanding drama school teacher been among us, they would have given the young actress the highest mark and taken her into their class at once… Who knows, perhaps that will happen – perhaps today we saw a future talented stage actress, Anna Popovych ….

Our sincere thanks to the school’s teachers and its head Hanna Fedorak, who watched her pupil’s triumphant performance with inspiration.

Today, for the first time in the festival’s history, there was a kind of contest between two vocal schools whose pupils also learn Ukrainian songs and perform them skilfully… The UN CANTO school led by Maria Kondratjeva is already well known in Estonia and even abroad. Maria is a superb vocalist and a skilful teacher. Her pupils regularly take part in national and international festivals and competitions and are frequent guests on TV and radio.

Thanks to Maria Kondratjeva’s support, several pupils of our Sunday school already show good vocal training.

A true musical souvenir of the festival was the performance by studio soloist Zakhar Klymenko of the song “Oi u haiu, pry Dunaiu”, when his ringing voice was joined by the sound of a musical nightingale – a nightingale whistle – with which first Zakhar himself and then a whole ensemble of nightingales enchanted us… It was a real musical gift from the “UN CANTO” studio, for which we are endlessly grateful to its director…

The vocal battle from “UN CANTO” was taken up by the studio “CARAMEL”, led by our charming compatriot from Kyiv, Kyiv Conservatory graduate Yana Balakina. Her vocalists were fully worthy of their teacher… we were especially charmed by Kamil Kuzmychov’s song “Trymai”, now popular in Ukraine…

And when, almost at the end of the programme, Levon Kevorkian came on stage with the song “Jamaica”, we realised that Estonia now has its own Robertino Loretti or a future Luciano Pavarotti – who knows…

The boy has a rare gift: a very strong, piercing voice of extraordinary range... We wish him and his teacher a successful vocal career!

The dance numbers of the “Kolor” ensemble made the programme colourful, varied in tempo and multifaceted… What amazes is not only the variety of the group’s dance stories but also the extraordinary brightness and artistic perfection of the costumes, an important part of the artistic whole of each number… Nina Hets is known not only as a master of choreography but also as a true craftswoman who can make rather complex costumes with her own hands. Following the story of a dance, we often forget how important the costume is for its expressiveness...

The festival “Flowers of Ukraine – 2021” ended successfully… It is enough to note the incredibly high technical standard of the concert. We concert organisers often face problems when technical glitches occur during a programme, but this never happens at Lindakivi Cultural Centre. And today too there were no technical issues at all – only huge thanks to the teams responsible for sound, lighting, microphones and so on… Once again, the organisers thank all of Lindakivi’s technical staff for their responsible attitude to their work and their exceptional support for our music programmes...

In conclusion, I want to thank all the heads of the Sunday and vocal schools and the festival’s director and stager Nina Hets for the enormous energy of their hearts and for supporting each other and our Ukrainian diaspora life in Estonia.

Our unity will always serve the good and the future both of the Ukrainian diaspora in Estonia and of our Ukraine.

Liubov Laur, member of the AUOE Board.