This past Friday was a Cossack holiday.  For those of you not up to-date on Ukrainian and Russian history- a Cossack is a person from Southern Russia, Ukraine or Siberia and who historically have been noted for their horsemanship and military units.  The group originated in the 15th century mostly by fleeing religious persecution.  Anyways, on Friday I went to two different events celebrating Cossack life.  

Friday morning my counterpart, a rayon administrator, the director of the House of Culture and I went to a village to watch their celebration.    First we were greeted at the village library.  My counterpart and I are currently working on a grant to get internet and computers into our library as well as two village libraries in our Rayon.  This is one of the village libraries.  

The program and concert started as children dressed up in their traditional Ukrainian clothing lit candles  to place in front of the Icon.  Each child had a small paragraph, in Ukrainian, that they recited about Cossack history.  All of these children speak Russian in their homes but education is taught in Ukrainian.

There were many different skits and dances representing different aspect of the harvest time.  My favorite was these three boys who danced with kettle bells! Each KB weighted 20-30lbs, pretty impressive! 

In the afternoon I went to a Cossack competition between two Seventh Form classes at school.  This was very fun to watch and be apart of.  Over the summer I had been to a sports competition between villages, some of the events were the same in this competition (just modified to fit the ages).  These events are competitions only between men and boys.  Although girls can be included in parts of the dances. 

The starting of the competition, reciting historical facts about Cossack life.

Arm wrestling competitions

At the competition this summer the guys used bags of seeds, the boys at school used pillow.

Tug of war

The last event was a group dance.

Both classes with some of the girls.