Serving the Ukrainian community in British Columbia
since 1991
Readers know they can keep in touch with the Ukrainian community in
British Columbia by reading Contact. Here's a sampling from the Autumn 1998
issue of CONTACT.
********************************
* Experiencing British
history in today's Ukraine
Local travel agent Myrna Arychuk of Cascade Travel helps
military history buff re-enact the Charge of the Light Brigade.
* Zeellia:
"Slavic Soul" a sizzler on stage
Vancouver-based women's ensemble singing in the traditional bilij holos style stages
concert to launch their first CD.
* InfoUkes: Blazing
trails and breaking barriers
A profile of the groundbreaking internet site tells why and how Ukrainian organizations
should get on the internet - now.
* Next "Team
Canada" offers unique opportunity
Published prior to the announcement of the cancellation of Team Canada to Ukraine in 1999,
this article nonetheless has valuable information for the pro-active.
* Abbotsford
dance group wins big at Vegreville Festival
Abbotsford's Yevshan dancers celebrate their 10th anniversary with a passel full
of medals from Vegreville's Pysanka Festival.
* Book by Richmond-based Auschwitz survivor aims to
reverse negative steretypes of Ukrainian nationalists
Also ... popular Ukrainian TV program goes
off the air, community events, News
Briefs, Ukrainian language instruction, The Art of Ukrainian Cuisine, where
to get a good perogy supper ... and more!
Experiencing British history in
today's Ukraine
"Forward, the Light
Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
from Poems of Alfred Tennyson
J. E. Tilton and Company, Boston, 1870
In October 1854, the attention of the
world’s most powerful empire was fixed on the territories of modern-day Ukraine.
It was by no means a benevolent gaze the British Empire cast eastward.
For it was the Crimean War, and at Balaclava, Britain took a beating which has been
immortalized in Lord Alfred Tennyson‘s poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade.
This legend holds great fascination for many people, especially since
the Iron Curtain’s collapse has made it accessible.
Last year, one military history buff, Bob Ross, took the Ukrainian
Waterways cruise with Cascade Travel. Ecstatic over his experience, on his return home he
shared it with the local media and us.
Here’s an excerpt:
"As my departure grew closer, I refreshed my memory
by reading everything I could about the Battle of Balaclava and the charge of the light
brigade.
I was pretty excited when our ship docked at Yalta, the farthest our
two-week cruise would penetrate into the Black Sea.
After driving for an hour and a half through a pastoral countryside of
scattered farms and meadowlands, we arrived at a fork in the highway. A road sign in
Cyrillic said straight ahead to Sevastopol, left to Balaclava. All of a sudden it hit me
– we were there! Tennysons’ valley of Death!
The ridges, the hills, the valley – all looking just the way they
were described in The Illustrated London News, The Reason Why, and all the other
references I‘d read.
No industrial complexes or tracts of housing. Just vineyards and
pastures. No signs or monuments to commemorate the ballte. The old Woronozow Road still
runs along the Causeway Heights.
Several non-distinct mounds of earth and rock mark what were probably
the six redouts that protected the British naval guns, the subject of Lord Raglan’s
controversial order for the cavalry to advance.
I doubt that any of the locals – or any visitors for that matter
– would know the meaning of all that.
But Prince Charles knows. He was there a year before me, for a personal
tour of the events of that October day in 1854. His guide was the curator of the Crimean
War museum, who made a portable presentation for the occasion. The same fellow came to
meet me, and with the help of the same diagrams, he described the events of the Battle of
Balaclava.
My horse arrived on schedule – God knows how my travel agent put
that together! I named him Bucephalus, after Alexander the Great’s favourite mount.
The charge went well – until at full gallop, Bucephalus figured he’d been hit by
a cannon ball, faked a forward roll, and sent me flying! Overwhelmed, I still managed to
clamber back up and continue the charge.
I did it! I brought it all together – dad’s poem, the
paintings on the wall, the books and basement battle souvenirs, the childhood fantasy. For
a fleeting moment, the past became the present.
It was over far too quickly. In retrospect, the highlight was not
galloping my horse along the valley. The thrill was in discovering for myself the scene of
one of the most famous moments in military history. It belongs to me!"
And it can belong to you, too! This July, we’ll be repeating
the experience and we’d love to have you join us - before the tourists discover it!
Give me a call at Cascade Travel and I’ll help you make it happen.
Myrna
Abbotsford dance group wins big at
Vegreville Festival
It’s been a landmark year for
Abbotsford’s Yevshan Ukrainian Dancers, and they’re not likely to soon forget
the excitement surrounding their 10th anniversary year.
This past spring, the group organized their first annual "Vesna
Festival", a spectacularly successful fundraiser which enabled them to travel to
Vegreville, Alberta in July to compete at western Canada’s largest Ukrainian dance
competition, the 1998 Pysanka Festival.
It was Yevshan’s second trip to Vegreville, and by far the most
memorable. Celebrating its own 25th anniversary this year, the festival
featured over 1000 competitors, and Yevshan walked away with medals in eleven out of
sixteen categories.
"We had hoped for medals in four categories," said Yevshan
dance manager Darlene Devries, whose two daughters perform with Yevshan.
"What we got far exceeded our expectations. We were amazed as the
medal count kept rising."
The win included a coveted gold medal which was awarded to the
twelve-member senior group for their rendition of a Transcarpathian dance.
The group’s instructor and choreographer is Gayle Walker, who has
performed with Cheremshyna Ukrainian Dance Ensemble of Vancouver, and studied Ukrainian
dance in Kiev in the early 1980s.
She is assisted by Volodya (BJ) Andreyev, a recent immigrant to Canada,
and a former performer with the Virsky Dance Ensemble of Kiev. Andreyev, who currently
performs with Tropak Ukrainian Dance Theatre of Richmond, BC, travels twice a month to
Abbotsford to work Yevshan’s male dancers.
Yevshan has built an impressive resume over the past few years. The
troupe has performed at the Pacific National Exhibition, Vancouver’s Dragon Boat
Festival, the Folklife Festival in Seattle, and in Victoria, the Okanagan, and numerous
venues in the Lower Mainland.
Yevshan is the highlight of the annual Malanka (Ukrainian
New Year’s Dance) of the Fraser Valley Ukrainian Cultural (FVUCS).
This banner year also marks the 20th anniversary of
Yevshan’s parent group, the Fraser Valley Ukrainian Cultural Society (FVUCS).
Evolving from a trio of dancers into today’s 36-member dance
troupe with its numerous supporters acting in various capacities, the society plays a
large role in the surrounding community as well.
The dancers have enjoyed good local media coverage, and the
society’s president from 1994-98, Willy Reimer, was recently named Abbotsford’s
"Volunteer of the Year" for 1998.
"Willy Reimer has truly been the inspirational leader of our
organization," said Gord Yakimow, the newly-elected president of the FVUCS, who said
that Willy had joined the dance troupe as part of his rehabilitation after a quadruple
by-pass heart operation four years ago.
Yakimow also says that spirit of commitment and dedication began with
the society’s first president, Peter Geleta (who today still publishes a newsletter
featuring the history of the founding members and pioneers of the FVUCS), and Mary
Shabatowski, who founded the first dance trio, and then handed over the reins to one of
the original dancers, Denise Jury.
Many others throughout the years have helped build a firm foundation
which allows the young people of the Fraser Valley today to celebrate their Ukrainian
heritage with pride, and to continue to excel for years to come.
Zeellia:
"Slavic Soul" a sizzler on stage
By Paulette MacQuarrie
If you should happen to hear that
Zeellia is coming to your town, my advice is – don’t miss the experience of a
lifetime! They will reach deep into your own "Slavic soul" - and if you
didn’t have one coming in, you will by the end of the first set.
The Vancouver-based female quartet has just released its first
full-length album on CD and cassette, and held a CD release concert on Saturday Sept. 19
at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Vancouver.
The CD is entitled simply "Zeellia" and contains a number of
Slavic folk-songs, mostly Ukrainian, done in the traditional "bilij holos" or
pure voice style of singing.
The liner notes, (in English, with transliterated titles), give a brief
"story line" of each song. On the back cover, there’s a personal note by
the group’s director, Beverly Dobrinsky, super-imposed over a sepia-toned photo of
the foursome.
While the CD is spectacular, the live performance eclipses it by far.
On stage, Zeellia has an uncanny ability to evoke the informal warmth of an old-fashioned
family sing-along while demonstrating the kind of musical skill that comes from years of
formal training and practice.
The women sing some songs acappella, others are accompanied by
accordian (Marion Ross), tom-tom (Bessie Wapp) or by special guest musicians Sandy Fiddes
(violin), Mike Hambrook (Clarinet), Emry Laird (reeds, flute, dvoyanka), and Melanie
Sereda (cello).
Their on-stage presence is warm and relaxed. Story lines of each song
are given in advance for the benefit of those who don’t understand Ukrainian,
Bulgarian, or other Slavic languages.
The on-stage descriptions were more detailed than the CD’s liner
notes, and drew delighted laughter from the audience on several occasions.
The majority of the songs were well-known Ukrainian folksongs, but
there were quite a few surprises. Seven out of the 21 were not – four were Bulgarian,
one was Croation, one Serbian and one Macedonian.
As well, there were two which were distincltly Ukrainian Canadian. One
reflected the immigrant experience of loneliness in a foreign land, the other dealt with
some heavy issues in a light-hearted manner – and some English.
In fact, typically for folksongs, particularly women’s folksongs,
many of the issues were indeed "heavy", and foreign to most Canadian lifestyles
– the resigned acceptance of forced marriage, domestic violence, and murder.
But Zeellia’s introductions and delivery forestalled any potential
discomfort over the subject matter. What most of us in the audience felt was the universal
human emotion of sympathy for the human condition.
During intermission and after the performance, the consensus seemed to
be that we also felt awe and inspiration.
Zeellia dubs itself "Slavic Soul" - perhaps the East European
answer to Loreena McKennitt, the Rankin Family, Finjan, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo all
rolled into one.
Like McKennitt, Zeellia creates a mystical aura while performing, yet
at the same time manages to address some of life’s sordid realities in a
down-to-earth and often humourous manner.
The instrumental sets were quite a cross-cultural mix, ranging from the
traditional Ukrainian kozachok and Vzyav by ya banduru
to Serbian dance tunes and a klezmerish rendition of And the Angels Sing,
which I’m sure would have impressed even swing king Benny Goodman.
Zeellia also incorporates an earthy element to some of the songs which
is vaguely reminiscent of North American aboriginal singing.
Dobrinsky explained that this sound, kind of a cross between a
plaintive wail and a yodel, was used commonly in ancient Eastern Europe villages. Zeellia
tends to restrict this effect to songs dealing with sorrow, disaster, or evil.
Zeellia, who have named themselves after a word which means both
"herb" and "magic potion", have aptly defined "Slavic Soul"
in musical terms.
Make sure to get a copy of their CD and run - don’t walk – to
their next concert.
"Zeellia" is Beverly Dobrinsky, Carmen Rosen, Marion Ross and Bessie
Wapp.
Next
"Team Canada" offers unique opportunity
A spokesman for the
Canada-Ukraine foundation has presented a unique and unprecedented opportunity for
BC’s Ukrainian community to assist in Ukraine’s economic, political and cultural
development.
Speaking at the Ukrainian Manor in Vancouver Friday Sept. 11, Edmonton
lawyer Andrij Semotiuk stressed that with a clear focus, determination and preparation,
the Ukrainian community can take advantage of the "Team Canada" mission in
January, 1999 to Ukraine, Russia and Poland.
The Canada-Ukraine Foundation proposes to establish a Canada-Ukraine
Matching Trust Fund, which would be announced and signed by Prime Ministers Chretien and
Kuchma in Kyiv in January. It already has the support of several provincial governments
and prominent Canadians.
"It’s likely the only opportunity we’ll see as Canadians
in our lifetime," said Semotiuk. "Maybe, just this one time, our community will
be ready," he added hopefully.
The Team Canada missions are designed to generate new business for
Canadian companies overseas. Prime Minister Jean Chretien has led four such delegations of
provincial premiers, territorial leaders and businesspeople on expeditions to Asia and
South America. This mission will be the first to Europe.
These missions have led to business deals estimated at $22 billion.
They have opened doors for Canadian businesses to important contacts and opportunities,
creating and sustaining thousands of jobs across Canada.
The Matching Trust Fund proposes the Canadian government provide a $4
match for every $1 raised by the community. From a base of $3 million annually over a
10-year period, it would allocate $350,000 to British Columbia and other provinces with
activity and a strong interest in Ukraine.
Eligible groups include incorporated Canadian non-profit and
non-governmental organizations involved in an overseas project for at least two years,
which meet today’s political criteria of gender equality, environmental protection,
etc., and which clearly demonstrate a fundraising capacity. The project must promote
self-reliance and sustainability, as well as contribute to Canada’s development.
The program will not provide funding for partisan politics or religion;
rather preferring to assist in the development of a self-reliant, democratic civil society
in Ukraine by advancing education and training, and various humanitarian projects.
Semotiuk is calling on BC’s community leaders to hold a series of
meetings, beginning immediately, to come up with an eligible project(s) under the auspices
of UCC-BC.
"Many ideas could be put forward," he stressed. "The
trust fund is just one."
He pointed out that the important thing is to come up with a solid
project by December, which meets the wishes of the community as well as the criteria, and
includes a sound fundraising plan.
Whether the focus is on politics, culture, or economics, Semotiuk feels
a fairly safe bet would be in the area of training and education.
"The darker the situation in Ukraine, the more education is
needed."
InfoUkes:
Blazing trails and breaking barriers
"We have actually shocked
ourselves with the degree of our success," says Gerry (Slavko) Kokodyniak, one of the
founders of InfoUkes, the first – and largest – Ukrainian Internet site.
And no wonder. Over the past year, InfoUkes has consistently had a
10-16% increase per month in the number of visitors. But that’s likely because
InfoUkes boasts the Internet’s largest data base of information on Ukrainian related
topics.
InfoUkes is monitored by the mainstream media, including the CBC, Globe
& Mail, Ottawa Citizen, Edmonton Journal, and Montreal Gazette. It’s been
accessed by the Parliament of Canada, Privy Council Office, Executive Office of the
President of the United States, and other governments around the world, as well as
corporations, organizations, and individuals.
Public schools looking for information on Ukraine and Ukrainians find
it at InfoUkes. Canadian SchoolNet, the American K-12 Educational Resource Network, and
students world-wide visit the site. (InfoUkes offers public schools in Ukraine free web
space to put up information on their school, community, or city.)
Even traditional media institutions are recognizing the value of the
site’s wealth of Ukrainian-related information, and its highly user-friendly format.
The History Channel recently designated the InfoUkes "Internment
of Ukrainians in Canada 1914-1920" as a Recommended Site.
"We were tickled pink," says Kokodyniak, who still seems
bemused with The History Channel’s emailed congratulations and offer of the use of
their logo. And, the History Channel website also encourages their 200,000+ monthly
visitors to visit InfoUkes.
InfoUkes is 7-10 times larger than the next largest site, with over
31,000 requests for files and 12,000 Web pages viewed on average daily. That’s the
equivalent of one web page viewed every 7.3 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
There are over 20 categories, from History and Politics to Culture,
Genealogy, Maps and Cyrillic fonts. You’ll find discussion groups, the Ukrainian gift
store Yevshan, Amazon.com selling Ukrainian books, and more.
If Kokodyniak is surprised by their success, so is Andrij Ukrainec, who
manages the site with Kokodyniak. They never dreamed it would get this far.
"I just wanted to see if it can be done," said Ukrainec.
"I was working with [computers] everyday, so I had the knowledge."
It all began in 1991, when the two noticed each other challenging the
perpetrators of anti-Ukrainian propaganda on the Internet. Eventually they contacted each
other in order to co-ordinate tactics. Six months later, they met in person at an
"end of the USSR" party.
Buoyed by their success at curbing the electronic hate-mongering, the
two engineering PhD candidates decided to maintain the momentum. Ukrainec set up the Ukes
Internet site at McMaster University, and Kokodyniak assisted him from the University of
Toronto.
Soon it grew too big to manage through the university. So in April,
1997, they formed InfoUkes, Inc. with the help of four other Ukrainian Canadian and
American professionals - Andrew Melnyk, Walter Maksimovich, Orest Dorosh, & Andrew
Javni.
With all this success, Kokodyniak and Ukrainec are puzzled by the
lukewarm reception from those who would benefit most from their service.
"It seems Ukrainian Canadian organizations don't quite realize how
the Internet bypasses the traditional media," says Kokodyniak, referring to the
mainstream media’s overall unfavourable treatment of Ukrainian issues.
With InfoUkes, Ukrainian organizations can now get their name in front
of thousands of information seekers 24 hours a day, and their message sent to electronic
mailing lists.
That’s a great benefit for organizations with dwindling revenues
and declining memberships.
"Some of the mailing lists have a larger membership than many
traditional organizations," says Ukrainec.
The concept is catching on, however. The Ukrainian Canadian Civil
Liberties Association, Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation, and the BC
and Saskatchewan branches of UCC, among others, have home pages at InfoUkes.
Recently, the Town of Dauphin (Canada’s National Ukrainian
Festival) Home Page boosted its viewership five times via the InfoUkes site. And this year
the Festival reported its highest attendance in over 50 years.
Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. At any rate, at $100 a year (slightly
more for virtual hosting), a home page on InfoUkes is an exceptional bargain. For that
price, you won’t get better exposure. And it’s easy, judging by their assistance
in helping set up UCC-BC.
Success is often its own reward, but Kokodyniak and Ukrainec
aren’t resting on their laurels. They plan to stay at #1, because they believe
passionately in what they do. Besides, they love the job.
"We just go there and have fun," says Kokodyniak.
"We’re doing something we like while doing something for the Ukrainian
community."
Slavko and Andrij will soon be sharing their internet wisdom with the readers of Contact on a regular basis. Look for their column in the next
issue!
Popular
TV program goes off the air
Due to a new
format which Rogers Community Cable Channel 4 has now implemented, our programs "Echoes
of Ukraine" and Kontakt TV will no longer be seen on a weekly basis.
Instead we are being given the occasional one-hour "special".
For Christmas, Easter, and whenever a "special" event in the Ukrainian community
occurs, Rogers may accommodate us.
Our Echoes of Ukraine has been on Rogers Channel 4 on a
regular basis for seven years – a "good run" as they say in television.
It has been my pleasure to provide this service to our community, and I
will continue to do what I can for future programming. We will be putting our efforts
towards getting on the Multicultural Channel sometime in the future and that will occur
when an opening in Rogers Multicultural schedule appears.
I sincerely thank you, our viewers and organizations, for your
financial and moral support. Our sponsors and advertisers will still appear in the
forthcoming programs and we are extremely grateful for their support.
A special thanks to the many capable hosts: Roman Herchak, Jarema
Kowalchuk, Stefan Lemieczewski, Eugene Lupynis, Paulette MacQuarrie, Roman Onufrijchuk,
Alexandra Polujan, Bohdan Zajcew - and our newest "trainee", Mark Petriw.
Thinking back on all the wonderful guests who shared their expertise
and experiences willingly and unselfishly makes one realize what talented people we have
in our community.
There is a strong possibility that in the fall, an interesting forum
will be held on the Great Famine (1932-33) so till then "do nastupnoho"!
Editor’s note: Julia Stashuk has been producing
Ukrainian television programs since 1982. Echoes of Ukraine, first broadcast in
1991, is a three-time winner of the William and Mary Kostash Award for Best Ukrainian
Video in Canada, awarded by Grant McEwan Community College in Edmonton.
She has just been selected to receive the Taras Shevchenko medal for
outstanding community service, to be awarded this fall at the triennial Ukrainian Canadian
Congress.
Please check the UCC-BC website www.infoukes.com/uccbc for special
program times and updates of future Ukrainian television programming.
The
Art of Ukrainian Cuisine:
This issue: Mushroom Mania!
Cooking tip: Thickening power of white vs browned flour
Recipes:
* Sweet Cream Mushrooms
* Puffball Fritter
* Pidpenky with Gravy
* Morels in Delicate Sauce
NewsBriefs
Headlines:
* Ukrainian Army comes to Canada
* Project aims to stop trafficking of Ukrainian women
* Ukrainian made rocket crashes
* ID checks to be introduced
* Moody’s lowers debt rating
* Bechtel in Ukraine
* Chinese buy Ukrainian ship
* Debtors forced to pay back government
* Cholera threat
* Mine blast in Luhansk
* Nuclear safety standards declining
Keep your finger on the pulse of B.C.’s
Ukrainian community with a subscription to CONTACT! The only
newsletter with the news, views, and personalities of the Ukrainian community in B.C.
