By Olha Chepil | 2026-01-26

In a remote Carpathian village, tradition is worn, carried and practiced, year after year.

Kryvorivnia, high in Ukraine's western Carpathians, is one of the few places where the Hutsul Kolyada, an ancient Christmas caroling ritual, continues as a living tradition rather than a staged performance. Carolers dress in inherited clothing, follow strict ceremonial roles and sing only songs passed down through generations. For many Ukrainians, the village has become a point of return, a place where cultural identity is maintained.

The village in Ivano-Frankivsk Region is known far beyond the mountains. Director Sergei Parajanov filmed scenes of his cult classic "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" here. During the Christmas season, the center of village life shifts to the snowy courtyard of the 17th-century wooden Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

By midday, the churchyard fills with people and sound. Carolers arrive in bright Hutsul serdaks and embroidered shirts, carrying bartkas -- small shepherd's axes -- and instruments including violins, horns and trembitas, the long wooden alpine horns that define the ritual's soundscape.

Villagers mingle with visitors from across Ukraine. Some cross themselves. Others watch silently, phones raised. Then the trembitas rise, and the air fills with deep, resonant blasts and layered male voices.

"I've dreamed of coming here for a long time. This is my first time here. The people are dressed so beautifully, the way they celebrate is so heartfelt, they're carefully preserving and passing the tradition down from generation to generation. It's priceless," Marichka Keliy told Kontur.

Keliy traveled from Horlivka in Donetsk Region with her dog to experience Kolyada in Kryvorivnia.

A living ritual

In Kryvorivnia, Christmas celebrations run from December 25 through January 6. Carolers begin by singing outside the church, then spend up to two weeks moving from house to house across surrounding villages. The process is physically demanding and tightly regulated.

"We might stay at one house for two to eight hours, and sometimes even for ten hours. You need to carol the entire time, without breaks," Yuriy Kopelchuk told Kontur, straightening his serdak.

His jacket is a family heirloom passed down from his great-grandfather. No one remembers who embroidered it. Such objects are not for museums. They are worn, repaired and handed on.

Kopelchuk said Hutsul clothing once served practical and social purposes. His traditional headdress, known as rogachka, originally unfolded to protect the ears from wind and ice. Decorative elements also conveyed status.

"Nowadays the ornamentation on the hat just looks like decoration. In the past, it had a meaning for the Hutsuls: if it was on the left it meant you were single and if it was on the right it meant you were married. Now they are just called darmovisy -- literally 'hanging for nothing,'" he said.

This is Kopelchuk's fifth year caroling, continuing a family tradition that spans generations.

Kolyada in Kryvorivnia follows a carefully structured ritual. One of its most powerful moments comes when trembita players raise their instruments, blow, then lower them in unison. The sound is less melody than force -- enveloping and solitary.

"It takes years of practice to master it. It's very complicated," Kopelchuk said.

Another ritual centers on the bartka. Carolers lift the ax overhead and rotate it 180 degrees as bells attached to the handle jingle. The movement symbolizes the victory of light over darkness, an idea that resonates strongly today.

Each group must be led by a "birch," or leader. Petro Zelenchuk has served in that role for more than 30 years, following his great-grandfather.

"I've been caroling for a third of a century. Our carols are so ancient that it's impossible to say exactly how old they are. The tradition is being passed on. That's the most important thing," Zelenchuk told Kontur.

He said carolers in Kryvorivnia sing only old songs. Their repertoire, like their clothing, is inherited. Zelenchuk still keeps his father's notebook from the 1950s. Today's carolers learned from those handwritten pages.

Survival and strength

During the Soviet era, the Kremlin banned Kolyada along with the Ukrainian church and religious ceremonies. In Kryvorivnia, people continued caroling in secret, high in the mountains, beyond official view.

“It was rough," Zelenchuk said.

Some carols, including those referencing deportations to Siberia or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, were especially dangerous. Singing them could lead to imprisonment. Zelenchuk said bans were strict in the 1960s and 1970s and intensified in the 1980s. The revival began during perestroika, around 1988, when villagers sensed the system weakening.

Kryvorivnia became the first village in Verkhovyna District to openly restore Kolyada. At the time, only one group existed.

"I was also in that first party. I was 14 years old at the time. There are only four of us left from that group. Everyone else has died," Zelenchuk said.

The legacy of those prohibitions still resonates beyond the Carpathians. Keliy said traditions in eastern Ukraine were also reshaped by Soviet policies.

"In the east the wheat was destroyed during the Soviet era, and kutia was often made out of rice," she said, referring to the traditional Christmas dish. Her grandmother preserved the wheat-based recipe. Today, Keliy said, her grandmother and mother live under occupation.

Viktoria Marusiak's family reflects how Kolyada is passed down in Kryvorivnia.

Her 4-year-old son, Matviy, went caroling for the first time this Christmas season. Her older son, Danylo, is now in his third year, and their father, Petro Marusiak, is one of the village's best-known carolers.

"So Kolyada is truly being passed down from hand to hand, from father to son," Marusiak stold Kontur. "This is the preservation of traditions. It's the first thing that identifies our country. If we don't protect it and pass it down, everything that's now happening in the east loses its meaning."

Kolyada has also become a form of wartime support.

Marusiak said about 80% of the village's men are now serving at the front. They write home to say it matters to them that Kolyada continues and that children are still caroling. All money raised between Christmas and Epiphany goes to support service members.

"It is painful. But in this, our path is also our strength," Marusiak said.