Friday 5/19 @ 4:00pm – “cold open” **no stage show** with food and crafts vendors open for business
Saturday 5/20 @ 2:00p – Outdoor song and dance stage performances
Saturday 5/20 @ 5:00p – Ukrainian Liturgy inside St. George Church
Saturday 5/20 @ 6:00p – Outdoor stage performances
Sunday 5/21 – Ukrainian Liturgies inside St. George Church @ 7:00a, 8:00a, and 10:00a
Sunday 5/21 – Concert inside St. George Church by Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York @ 11:30a
Sunday 5/21 – Outdoor stage performances begin @ 1:00p
The festival routinely draws several thousands down to the East Village every year. Over 30,000 sought-after Ukrainian dumplings have been prepared in advance, and in addition to these ‘varenyky’, there will also be plenty of cabbage rolls (holubtsi), beet soup (borshch), sausage (kobasa) and sauerkraut for sale. The legendary Veselka Restaurant will also be on hand all weekend long with some of their favorite Ukrainian menu items. A portion of these sales will be used for Humanitarian relief efforts.
The Festival itself will occupy all of East 7th Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues, bordered at its West end by Taras Shevchenko Place, a small street connecting East 6th and East 7th Streets. In the United States, it is the only such street officially named after Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), the “National Bard of Ukraine”.
Saint George Ukrainian Catholic Church, located at 30 East 7th Street, was founded in the East Village in 1905. Visitors to today’s church particularly enjoy the breathtaking church ornamentation, paintings, and incredible mosaics in the Byzantine-Ukrainian style. The church has sponsored an annual festival since the very first one in 1976, then officially a co-celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial and 100 years of Ukrainian immigration to America.