This morning we took our flight from Kyiv to Ivano-Frankivsk. We had about an hour to to kill before we caught the bus to Kolomyya so we grabbed some pyrizhky, a fried dough stuffed with potatoes, at a vendor.
There wasn't a lot to see right around the bus terminal so we took a walk around a nearby park until it was time to go back and get on the bus. We're still enjoying the fall colors!
After about an hour and a half bus ride we arrived in Kolomyya, a little town known as the hub of Hutsul culture. We checked into our hotel and then went out to visit the town's two museums.
The first of the two museums was the Pysanka Museum, directly outside of our hotel. It's the only museum in the world dedicated to pysanka, or painted Easter eggs, and houses over 10,000 of these.
Some info about the Pysanka from Wikipedia: "The Hutsuls––Ukrainians who live in the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine––believe that the fate of the world depends upon the pysanka. As long as the egg writing custom continues, the world will exist. If, for any reason, this custom is abandoned, evil––in the shape of a horrible serpent who is forever chained to a cliff–– will overrun the world. Each year the serpent sends out his minions to see how many pysanky have been written. If the number is low the serpent's chains are loosened and he is free to wander the earth causing havoc and destruction. If, on the other hand, the number of pysanky has increased, the chains are tightened and good triumphs over evil for yet another year."
The second museum, the National Museum of Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttya Folk Art was even more interesting. It was nice to learn more about the Hutsuls before our trip tomorrow. The Hustul are an ethnic group that spans across parts of Romania and Ukraine. They have a vibrant culture full of music and art, and some elaborate costumes.
Across from our hotel is a large statue of Ivan Franko, one of the most popular writers of Ukraine. We just found out this evening there's a movie based on one of his stories playing at a small theater a few blocks away. I'm not sure if it's a Hollywood production but it's a cast of mostly Hollywood actors. It's a crazy coincidence we just happen to be here in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast when the movie is being released. Unfortunately the movie is not playing in English with Ukrainian subtitles, it appears to be dubbed in Ukrainian. We'll have to skip it for now and wait until it's released in the US.
We also ran into a large Soviet-era memorial from 1941. Any information about the memorial had been removed other than the list of names being memorialized.
Go to Day 5: Kosiv
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