NEW YORK – Yara Arts Group celebrated the reopening of the galleries of The Ukrainian Museum in New York with a special virtual event “Yara’s Traditional Arts: Hutsul Cheese Horses” about a unique Easter tradition.
Widely known are pysanky (traditional Ukrainian decorated Easter eggs), or paska (Ukrainian Easter bread), or haivky (traditional Ukrainian Easter songs and dances). But little is known about the Easter tradition of giving children “konyky” or little horses made of cheese on the Thursday before Easter.
Maria Sokolovska Zelenschuk, a native of the Carpathian Mountain region of Ukraine, provided a video presentation about the process and secrets that she has learned over her 12 years of experience making konyky. Ms. Zelenchuk is from the village of Bukovets, and has lived in Kryvorivnia since her marriage to Ivan Zelenchuk in 1975.
A video link for the presentation can be found by visiting the Yara Arts Group website, www.yaraartsgroup.net, where visitors can find previous presentations by Yara Arts Group from 2020 and 2021.
Yara’s Virtual Events are made possible with public funds from New York’s State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Self Reliance (N.Y.) Foundation and contributions from the friends of Yara Arts Group.