Ukrainian Canadian

Planning on attending Ukrainian New Years Eve a.k.a. Malanka? Here’s an extensive list of events happening around the world:

Malanka- A Ukrainian New Year’s Celebration

Sunday, December 4 at 5:30pm

AUUC Ukrainian Hall in Strathcona, 805 E. Pender St., Vancouver, BC

MALANKA

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 4:30pm

Lethbridge Senior Citizens Organization in Lethbridge, Alberta

Malanka 2012

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 6:30pm

Crystal Grand Banquet Hall & Conference Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, 2110 Dundas Street East

Ukrainian New Year ( Malanka)

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 5:30pm

Five Mile Hall, Alberta

NIGHT B4 MALANKA 2012

Friday, January 13, 2012 at 9:00pm

The Rockpile Nightclub, 5555 DUNDAS ST. WEST, Etobicoke, Ontario M9B 6C1

Malanka

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 6:00pm

St. Luke’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Warners, New York, 3290 Warners Rd

MALANKA 2012

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 8:30pm

St. George Academy in New York, New York, 215 EAST 6TH STREET

MALANKA @ AaSTORIA

Friday, January 13, 2012 at 7:30pm

AaSTORIA UKRAINIAN RESTAURANT, England

Malanka — Julian New Year

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 6:00pm

St Demetrius Ukrainian Community Center Banquet Facility in Carteret, New Jersey, 691 Roosevelt Ave.

Coventry Malanka 2012

Friday, January 13, 2012 at 8:00pm

103 Leicester Causeway, Coventry Ukrainian Social Club., England

MELBOURNE MALANKA 2012

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 5:30pm

Melrose Reception in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Corner of Melrose and Carrick Drive Tullamarine

The Malanka Tour Bus

Friday, January 13, 2012 at 6:00pm

Midlands/Bradford M1, England

2011 Whippany Malanka

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 7:00pm

Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey in Whippany, New Jersey, 60 North Jefferson Road, USA

Susydka hosts Malanka

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 6:00pm

Vita Hall in Vita MB

New Britain Malanka

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 9:00pm

St. George Hall – New Britain, Connecticut

Malanka in the Mountains

Friday, January 13, 2012 at 5:30pm

Jasper Park Lodge in Jasper, Alberta

USC KARPATY Malanka 2012

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 7:30pm

Crystal Grand Banquet Hall & Conference Centre in Mississauga, Ontario

CYM MALANKA 2012

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 5:00pm

Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex (Cym) in Edmonton, Alberta, 9615-153 Avenue

Elite Malanka 2012

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 6:00pm

Oakville, ON – SVCC

Toronto Plast – Пласт Malanka

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 6:00pm

Liberty Grand Entertainment Complex in Toronto, Ontario

Malanka! (Ukrainian New Years)

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 6:30pm

Royal Canadian Legion Innisfail 5208 49 Street Innisfail

Ottawa MALANKA 2012

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 6:00pm

Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral Hall , 1000 Byron Avenue, Ottawa, ON

S.A. Ukraina & DESNA Malanka 2012

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 5:30pm

Renaissance by the Creek in Toronto, Ontario, 3045 Southcreek Rd.

Boston Ukrainian New Year’s Dinner and Dance – Malanka 2012

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 8:00pm

The Lantana in Randolph, Massachusetts, 43 Scanlon Drive

Slavic New Year Gala / Malanka

Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8:00pm

John J Sulllivan’s, 557 Wakelee Ave, Ansonia, Connecticut

МАЛАНКА В КРЕНИЦИ-ЗДРОЮ

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 8:00pm

Karczma Regionalna, Czarny Potok 26a, Krynica Zdrój, Nowy Sacz, Poland

GEELONG MALANKA 2012 @ THE UKRANIAN HALL

Friday, January 13, 2012 at 7:30pm

THE UKRANIAN HALL, Geelong West, Australia

Plast Winnipeg Malanka – Пластова Маланка

Friday, January 13, 2012 at 6:30pm

Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 222 Broadway Avenue

Malanka (ie Ukrainian New Years!!!) (Not on new years…)

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 5:30pm

Ukrainian Cultural Center , 805 East Pender, Vancouver, BC

Plast Calgary Malanka 2012

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 5:30pm

Calgary Petroleum Club – 319 5th Ave SW

Malanka- A Ukrainian New Year’s Celebration

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 5:30pm

Ukrainian Cultural Centre, 805 E. Pender St., Vancouver, British Columbia

CYM/PLAST MALANKA 2012

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 5:30pm

3270 Beaubien E

Boston Ukrainian New Year’s Dinner and Dance – MALANKA 2012

Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 8:00pm

The Lantana in Randolph, Massachusetts, 43 Scanlon Drive

Suzirya Ukrainian Dance Theatre’s “Spirit of Malanka”

Friday, January 20, 2012 at 5:30pm

Thorncliffe Greenview Community Assoc in Calgary, Alberta

Thornhill Malanka: St. Volodymyr the Great Ukrainian Catholic Church (15 Church Lane) Saturday January 14, $35 – call 905-889-0187

Missing your event? Please leave the details in a comment.

Today kicks off Holodomor Awareness week which runs until Sunday November 27th, commemorating the genocide of 7-10 million Ukrainians through forced starvation by the USSR from 1932-33. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress has a full list of Holodomor events happening this week, and here are some news worthy events that have happened so far:

Kyiv – Ukraine to honor famine victims on Nov. 26

Kyiv will host mourning events on Ukrainian Holodomor Remembrance Day on Nov. 26 with the participation of the country’s leaders, government members, other officials, and the public, the press service of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych reported on Nov. 18
According to the report, it is planned to hold a funeral procession, lay flowers at the Memorial in Commemoration of Famines’ Victims, and observe a minute of silence for the victims of famines.
On the same day, a requiem concert will be held at the National Opera House of Ukraine.

Buffalo – Area survivors recall horrors of forced famine in ’30s Ukraine

"I look around in the field, and I see lots of people dead," Iwaszczenko recalled Sunday, following a requiem service commemorating the 78th anniversary of the Ukrainian genocide.

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Iwaszczenko, now 86, lost aunts and uncles in the great starvation, when agents of the Soviet state went into homes and confiscated any vegetables, grains and even seedlings — so peasants couldn’t grow their own food.

"The local government came in, and they took away all vegetables. They created hunger. They threw food in the ocean, but they wouldn’t give it to the people," said Iwaszczenko, who moved to Western New York in 1950. "We ate what we could from the fields."

Iwaszczenko’s parents survived the famine, too, but his father was arrested in 1937 by the KGB, the Soviet secret police. Iwaszczenko said he never again saw his father, and he still doesn’t know what happened to him.

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Family members of Holodomor survivors also relayed stories passed down to them: of children being forced to vomit to prove to authorities they had no food in their homes; of a small head of cabbage feeding dozens of people in a soup seasoned only by the cook’s salty saliva; of villagers digging up floor boards for a bite of a spoiled seed.

"Stalin’s henchmen confined millions of Ukrainians in their villages, confiscated every grain and leaf of sustenance and prevented international relief efforts from reaching the millions of starving men, women and children," said John Riszko, secretary of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, Buffalo Chapter.

Obama press secretary Jay Carney on Ukrainian Holodomor Remembrance Day

As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence — a testament to the spirit and determination of the people of Ukraine — we also remember the suffering they endured seventy-eight years ago during the catastrophic famine that has come to be known as the Holodomor — the “death by hunger.”

This terrible tragedy, created by the intentional seizure of crops and farms across Ukraine by Joseph Stalin, was one of communism’s greatest atrocities. Today, Americans join with the people of Ukraine and Ukrainians around the world in remembering those who suffered and died senselessly as a result of this manmade famine.

Sadly, no mention of genocide.

Hamilton – Local Ukrainians commemorate 1932 genocide

Ukrainians have succeeded in getting the UN and countries, including Canada, to recognize the famine was genocide. But they want present-day Russia to acknowledge it, too, and to offer compensation, Sheweli said. “They just say it was a famine, that neighbouring countries experienced it as well — which is revisionist history.”

An acknowledgment, she said, would go a long way to restoring historical justice. Hamilton, with about 14,000 Ukrainians, has Canada’s sixth or seventh largest Ukrainian population and has 13 famine survivors still living according to Sheweli.

Sheweli, born in Ukraine, heard first-hand accounts of the genocide from her mother and grandmother. They and the other children survived by eating mushrooms and other edibles in the forest, as well as soups made of forest greens.

..

“In 1932, Stalin decided to vanquish the Ukrainian farmers by means of starvation and thus break the Ukrainian national revival that had begun in the 1920s and was rekindling Ukrainian aspirations for an independent state,” it states.

“The territory of Soviet Ukraine and the predominantly Kuban region of Northern Caucasus (Soviet Russia) were isolated by army units, so that people could not go in search of food to the neighbouring Soviet regions where it was more readily available. The result was the Ukrainian genocide of 1932-33 known in Ukrainian as the Holodomor, or extermination by famine.”

The article also mentions all Holodomor events happening in Hamilton this week

Scholar: Pius XI wept when he learned of Stalin’s starvation of Ukraine

“The Pope [Pius XI] learned about the Holodomor from the French Jesuit Bishop Michel d’Herbigny, who was the president of the Pro Russia Commission,” says Father McVay. “D’Herbigny was receiving letters from the Soviet Union as well as reports from foreign diplomats who had witnessed the situation first hand. D’Herbigny attempted to move mountains in order to convince Pius XI to launch an aid-mission to the Soviet Union.”

“The emotional Pius XI wept when he received one report, and he insisted that something must be done,” he continued. “Unfortunately churchmen and diplomats all concurred that no aid would ever reach the people because Soviet authorities were officially denying the existence of a famine that Stalin had deliberately orchestrated. In the end, the Pope was only able to authorize a gift of 10,000 Italian lire to be forwarded to starving Catholics via German charitable organizations that had contacts in Ukraine.”

St. Catharines – Genocide Revealed

Film — Genocide Revealed, Nov. 23, 6:30 p.m., St. Catharines Centennial Public Library, Rotary Bankers Room, 54 Church St. Admission, non perishable food for Community Care. Memorial Service — Ecumenical Memorial Service Commemorating the Holodomor, followed by a short program. Nov. 27, 2:30 p.m, Ukrainian Black Sea Hall, 455 Welland Ave. Sponsored by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. Call 905-935-5186.

Ukraine – TV and radio companies are called to cancel entertainment shows on memory Day of Holodomor victims

National council of Ukraine on TV and radio broadcast has sent an address to heads of TV and radio companies to change the programs on November 26, the memory Day of Holodomor victims, press office of the National council reports.
The National council notes in his address that November 26 is the day of national mourning and calls all the TV and radio companies to demonstrate humanity and civil position.

MPP Dave Levac elected Speaker of The House in surprise result

Liberal Dave Levac was elected Speaker of the Ontario legislature Monday, taking over as chief political referee in Ontario’s first minority parliament in a generation.

Dave Levac was first elected in 1999. After his re-election in 2003, he was given the role of Chief Government Whip. In 2009, Levac sponsored a private member’s bill 147 – The Holodomor Memorial Day Act. As the first bill sponsored by three parties, bill 147 honours the victims of the Ukrainian Famine.

Here are some highlights from last week’s Toronto & Buffalo Ukrainian Festivals. I apologize for the lateness as I’ve been dealing with an internet outage (still ongoing) and it’s tough to get these uploaded without it!

If you want to relive almost the entire festival, watch this massive collection of videos:

And here’s my Toronto/Buffalo Festival video recap which pales in comparison:

Toronto Festival pictures:

Here are a few select photos from Facebook (Albums one and two):

Buffalo Festival pictures:

This weekend is your chance to celebrate Ukrainian culture on both sides of the border as Toronto and Buffalo put on their annual festivals:

Toronto Ukrainian Festival
Friday, Sept 16th – Sunday, Sept 18th, 2011
Bloor Street, between Jane and Runnymede

Discover Ukrainian culture in Canada and share the Ukrainian spirit at North America’s Largest Ukrainian Street Festival. This is your opportunity to experience Ukrainian culture and hospitality at its best. As always there will be non-stop entertainment with Ukrainian performers from the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, the USA and Ukraine which will include dancers, vocalists and musicians. Don’t miss the YOUTH segment on the grand stage at Jane Street! And if you wish – join the dancing at the evening ZABAVA/Street Dance on both Friday and Saturday.

You will find vendor kiosks: delicious authentic Ukrainian food and beverages, beautiful souvenirs, interactive pavilions, and more. This year you can also enjoy SIDEWALK SALE shopping at the local Bloor West Village businesses. There is a midway for kids and youth. Take in the colourful parade on Saturday morning at 11am and a new attraction this year is the Film Festival being held at the Runnymede Library (Sat) and The Village Playhouse (Sun).

More info

 

Buffalo Ukrainian Festival
Sunday, Sept 18th, 2011 Noon – 7PM
St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church Hall – 3275 Elmwood Ave.,  Kenmore, NY 14217

Dance music, traditional dance performances, indoor & outdoor seating, delicious food, scrupulous deserts, theme baskets, select vendors, indoor & outdoor and more.

More info

I will be attending both festivals this year, and will try to take lots of pictures and videos which I haven’t gotten much of a chance to do recently. Hope you can make it out!

From Your News Network:

The annual Ukrainian Festival at St. Nicholas Church in Elmira Heights has grown exponentially

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Sixty four years ago, the first Ukrainian Festival may have been a pretty small operation, but the lines and crowd that were on hand Sunday show that this celebration has come a long way.

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The polka music brought crowds to the dance floor, the kid’s games were very popular but the authentic Ukrainian food trumped them all. The lines at any time throughout the day could be over 100 people long, so there had to be enough food to go around

Read the article and watch the video

It’s great to see Ukrainian festivals becoming increasingly popular in the State of New York – whether it’s Buffalo, Yonkers, the Catskills mountains, Rochester or even New York City. There are even more events in our 2011 Summer guide!