Happy New Year!
Downtown Kolomaya, a few days before New Years day turns into a forest with evergreen trees for sale.
Traditionally in Ukraine a "Christmas tree" is not decorated on Christmas. It is my theory that in order to distract people's attention from any desire to celebrate Christmas, (a religious celebration) the soviets began decorating a tree for New Years and so it still is today. However, as we celebrate Christmas on both Dec. 25th and Jan. 7th we don't usually find any trees much before the 24th of Dec.
I am constantly reminded that the decorated tree is a New Years tree and not a Christmas tree.
A couple of years ago the government introduced a law that required all live trees sold to be farm grown to prevent the depletion of the forests. Or as many local believe to provide some business men with another source of income. However, this year it seems to me that there is a sense of contempt against any government directives. And there do not appear to be any commercially trees for sale on Kolomaya's streets.
The short dense trees are hand made to counter the ban on cutting your own tree. They are made of branches taken off a larger trees and attached to a central stalk to create a miniature tree.
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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Taras and Yaroslava |
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