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I am from Western Ukraine and while I have seen women wear crowns of woven flowers I didn't know that there was such a beautiful wedding tradition. Or the fact that it's being resurrected for the sake of peacefully asserting Ukrainian nationalism in the face of armed conflict and occupation by Russia.
> Now, when the country is again fighting against Russia—the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russia-allied separatist that started in 2014 is still ongoing, despite an official ceasefire—these wreaths are doing the same symbolic work.

It is not true. Russia invaded directly into Crimea and East Ukraine, with very little help from locals. Moreover, Russians says on video that locals don't want to war. 70% of people in East Ukraine are Ukrainians, anyway. Official version was that Russia need to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians from other Ukrainians, because they will kill them.

>the country is again fighting against Russia

i wonder when was the previous fight? Does it mean the fight between Soviet Red Army and Ukranian nationalists forces OUN/UPA during WWII? Those OUN/UPA who collaborated with Nazi, and performed the genocide of Poles and Jews, in particular in Lviv region where Ukranian population was only 10% before the genocide. The forces that came to power in Kiev in February 2014 have always celebrated the leaders of the OUN/UPA (i.e. Bandera, Shushkevich and the likes) and have made them official heroes of Ukraine since then. No wonder that Russians in Donbass(30+%) and Russians in Crimea(60%) felt that it is "time to go" when these forces took power by coup and the very first act of the new regime during the first days in power was the "[Anti Russian] language law". The message was pretty clear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia...

"The killings were directly linked with the policies of the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and its military arm, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose goal as specified at the Second Conference of the OUN-B on 17–23 February 1943 (or March 1943 according to other sources) was to purge all non-Ukrainians from the future Ukrainian state."

Previous war was between Ukrainian People Republic and fake Kharkiv People Republic createded by Russia.

OUN/UPA does not collaborate with Nazi after declaring of independence of Ukraine in Lviv in September 1941. More than 600 of OUN members were executed in Babi Yar by Germans. Leader of OUN, Stepan Bandera was German prisoner until end of war. See Nuremberg documents for more details. Just warning: it is officially prohibited to review results of Nuremberg process.

Quote from Wikipedia: A captured German document of November 25, 1941 (Nuremberg Trial O14-USSR) ordered: "It has been ascertained that the Bandera Movement is preparing a revolt in the Reichskommissariat which has as its ultimate aim the establishment of an independent Ukraine. All functionaries of the Bandera Movement must be arrested at once and, after thorough interrogation, are to be liquidated..."[43]

Yep, main target of OUN was to free Ukraine from Polish colonists and stop Polonization of Ukrainians (AKA Pacification). However, Volynia massacre was response to German operation against Ukrainian partisans with help of local Polish military police formed from Polish colonists at territory of Ukraine. OUN/UPA were not involved as organizations, only their members. Official documents of OUN/UPA stated that they wanted to keep peace with Polish people at that time because of greater threat from Germany and USSR.

> No wonder that Russians in Donbass(30+%) and Russians in Crimea(60%) felt that it is "time to go" when the very first act of the new regime during the first days in power was the "[Anti-Russian] language law".

Russians are always free to go back to Russia. Please, tell me more about "[Anti-Russian] language law". I never heard about that. Constitution of Ukraine says that Russian language is protected at Ukraine.

thanks to Internet, everybody can go and read the facts in their full set. I'll comment only on 1 thing:

>However, Volynia massacre was response to German operation against Ukrainian partisans with help of local Polish military police formed from Polish colonists at territory of Ukraine.

even if that were true (which it isn't, again - facts are available on the Internet), only in the mind of rabid nationalists can a genocide be a response to military operation.

Yep, when one side fires whole village with habitats - it is just military operation. When other side does same in response - it is genocide.

When Russians killed 7 millions of Ukrainians (Holodomor) - it was minor economic problem. When Ukrainian will kill even few hundreds of thousands of Russians - it will be major genocide.

Documents about Polish military police at Volyn: Motyka G. Polski policjant na Wołyniu // «Karta». — 1998. — № 24.

again, that is exactly that separates Ukranian nationalists today from the normal people. Germans committed genocide, tragic fact, accepted, and they don't try to defend it, to provide reasons trying to justify it. Because normal people understand that there is no "genocide because ...", there is just genocide. USSR committed a number of genocides, against aristocracy, against clergy, against peasants with the Ukranian Holodomor being part of that one (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...) as it was across the Ukraine and Russia agricultural regions (and yep, my grandparents, peasants from Kiev region, ended up in the end of 193x, the whole family with 5 children, in a labor camp on some large industrial site in West Russia - that how being fortunate looked back then.). Those genocides are tragic historic facts, nobody is trying to defend it. Only Ukranian nationalist are trying to balance the genocide committed by Bandera's OUN/UPA with the various other stuff.

Again, if you wanna discuss Holodomor, or insufficient attention and emphasis on it in modern Russian politics for example - be my guest, i pretty much agree with it. Yet Russians dont' say that Holodomor was a response to something.

Soviet Army committed a bunch of atrocities against German population - it is also very unpopular topic in Russia, yet nobody is trying to frame it as a response for the German actions.

>When Russians killed 7 millions of Ukrainians (Holodomor)

do you really think that it were specifically ethnic Russian policemen that came all the way to enforce "law of Spikelets" and passports laws, not the local communists/activists/police/kolhoz administration? My grandparents i mentioned above had never said anything bad about Russians, it is the local kolhoz administration, Party officials and the whole USSR government system, independent of ethnicity, that had always been target of their hot ("matyugi") words.

>When Ukrainian will kill even few hundreds of thousands of Russians

"even few hundreds of thousands of Russians" - as i said there huge difference between normal people and Ukranian nationalists.

Stepan Bandera organized killing of soviet consul to stop Holodomor, event known as "shot, which saved millions". It is why Russians hate Bandera so much - he stopped genocide.

> do you really think that it were specifically ethnic Russian policemen that came all the way to enforce "law of Spikelets" and passports laws, not the local communists/activists/police/kolhoz administration?

> "even few hundreds of thousands of Russians" - as i said there huge difference between normal people and Ukranian nationalists.

Do you think only Ukrainians will shoot Russians?

> Just warning: it is officially prohibited to review results of Nuremberg process.

I googled this back and fort a number of times to no avail.

Do you have direct pointers?

I assume that trhway is from Russia. It is law in Russia.
Thanks

> I assume that trhway is from Russia.

I have given up on categorizing trhway :-)

> It is law in Russia.

OK, I see. I only googled in English which might explain the lack of results. (The closest thing I found was that there was no possibility of appeal for the convicted.) Still a bit confused as to why Russians would create a law about the results of the Nuremberg trials.

I read recently that Russian court said that Soviets are not executed Polish officers in Katyn because of date presented at Nuremberg tribunal and because it is forbidden to review results of Nuremberg tribunal by law. :-/
> It is not true. Russia invaded directly into Crimea and East Ukraine, with very little help from locals.

When the foreign backed neo-nazis/nationalists where used as pawns to overthrow a democratically elected president and cabinet (with an approval rating higher than Obama), and then set out on a campaign of getting rid of all opposition, it became very true. And there are videos of their criminal conduct all over the internet.

The people fighting in the East break-away regions are people who do not want to be part of what you have to offer - which is nothing.

And the people of Crimea are quite happy with the current outcome.

And if Russia was truly invading Ukraine, it would have been done and over within 2 days.

Your entire new government structure is there to oppress you, lie to you, steal as much as possible from you, and to keep maintaining an ongoing conflict with Russia... All brought to you by some very nasty geo-politics from abroad.

When Russia will truly invade Aleppo? Two weeks were passed year ago.
Oh but they do burn people alive, don't they?

I think it's still quite possible to find Odessa videos on Youtube..

There’re results of international investigation on Odesa tragic events: https://www.coe.int/en/web/kyiv/report-on-investigations-of-... As you see, the report doesn’t support your accusation “they do burn people alive”.
There is still no war in Odessa. There is tens of thousands of victims in Donetsk. Some of them are burned alive.

Odessa people are crying and waiting for Russian army to come. (J)

The headdresses are cool, but the models wearing them also have a story. The modern models all look over eighteen. As they are wearing wedding garb, the photographer chose adult women. Young, but still adults. The 'models' in the historical photos are not. They are children by today's standards. Also, they are much more robust people. They are round-faced well-fed healthy people. The modern models are much thinner, with very different faces despite the obvious racial similarity. You see this in nearly every historical recreation. No matter how we try, our modern sensibilities are very difficult to overcome.
I pretty much agree, though their Instagram has a wider variety of models (by age at least) https://www.instagram.com/third_roosters/

Also their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TretiPivni/

Beautiful culture. It appears that headdresses are so much more than simple ornaments in pretty much all cultures. When I got married, as a Vietnamese male, I also wore the headdress.

I think there's much more to Ukraine than what we read or don't read on the news.

As someone from the outside looking in, my heart breaks for many friends in Ukraine who lost their homes. I wrote this for my Donetsk friends who had to uproot: http://nguonthieng.com/thirty-ba-muoi/story-of-the-wind.html

Oh my, I wish it was Indian feather crowns, at least there wouldnt be so much hate in comments russian vs ukrainian