Vyshyvanka Day
Vyshyvanka Day is an international holiday that aims to preserve the original folk traditions of creating and wearing ethnic embroidered Ukrainian clothes called vyshyvanka. It is celebrated every third Thursday of May. Vyshyvankas are, along with pysanka (traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs), one of the best known symbols of Ukrainian culture. The holiday is not tied to any state, ethnicity or religion. It is not a public holiday. History. The idea of the Vyshyvanka Day was suggested in 2006 by Lesia Voroniuk, then a student of Chernivtsi University. Lesia suggested that her classmates and students choose one day and  wear vyshyvanka shirts all together. Initially, several dozen students and several faculty members wore embroidered shirts. But in the following years, the holiday grew to an all-Ukrainian level. Later it attracted the Ukrainian diaspora around the world, as well as supporters of Ukraine. The day of celebration was intentionally set on a weekday and not in the weekend "to emphasize that the vyshyvanka is a component of the life and culture of Ukrainians, and not an ancient artifact." The five-year anniversary of the holiday in 2011 was marked by setting the Guinness World Records with the largest number  of people dressed in embroidered shirts and gathered in one place. More than 4,000 people in vyshyvanka shirts gathered on the Chernivtsi Central Square. The same year, the sewing company sewed a huge embroidered shirt (4 by 10 meters) for the central building of the Chernivtsi University. Vyshyvanka Day in 2015 was celebrated under the slogan "Give the vyshyvanka to a defender". It was a campaign launched to raise the fighting spirit of Ukrainian soldiers in Russia-Ukrainian war. The holiday was marked on a global scale, about 50 countries of the world joined the action.