Festival in East Village Aims to to Keep Ukrainian Culture Alive

For 49 years, there has been a Saint George Ukrainian Festival in the section of the East Village long known as Little Ukraine but the upcoming three-day cultural event might be the most important one yet.

Since 2022, more than 280,000 Ukrainians have migrated to New York City fleeing the war in their home country. This festival takes the shrinking neighborhood of Little Ukraine and turns it into a loud and proud celebration of Eastern European music, fashion and culture.

The Saint George Ukrainian Festival, sponsored by the Saint George Ukrainian Catholic Church, is a weekend-long celebration taking place this weekend from Friday, May 16 to Sunday, May 18 thanks to the hard work of an all volunteer brigade.

“Whether it’s carrying tents, tables, chairs, sandbags to secure the tents, or the ladies making pierogies in the church basement...Everybody’s a volunteer. Not a single performer is getting paid, not a single worker,” says Andrew Stasiw, the principal of the Saint George Academy where a lot of students are refugees from Ukraine.

The list of performances range from youth choirs to dance troupes, while booths carry food, fashion, jewelry and other goods that celebrate Ukrainian culture. Sixty percent of all vendors at the festival are from not-for-profit organizations, donating all proceeds to humanitarian aid in Ukraine.

“We’re not professional festival producers, and so this is always a daunting task every year, but people really dig in and it’s such a good vibe,” Stasiw said.

Ukrainians love New York City and the City has been kind to them in return, he said. A lot goes into a three-day street closure, and the Mayor’s Office has backed them every step of the way. The NYPD, FDNY, Department of Sanitation and community service workers have rallied around the cause, transforming the Manhattan neighborhood into a reminiscent Eastern European village.

For Stasiw, who has family fighting back in his parents’ home country, this festival shows off the adaptable, industrious, united nature of the Ukrainian community in America.

“In the last hundred years, the Ukrainian community has stuck together. We’ve built up churches...We have Ukrainian national homes, we have scouting organizations, we have the Ukrainian Congress Committee so that we have representation in Washington,” he said. “It’s a really well-developed community that really works hard.”

It’s a “warm, fuzzy feeling,” he says, to see refugees reconnecting with their ethnic heritage while missing their homeland so much. This three-day celebration—with the colors, the dancing, the costumes—is meant to make the thousands believe, even for just a weekend, they’re back in Ukraine.

“We’ve been here [in the East Village] for over a hundred years in some way, shape or form,” he said. “So this festival is really important for the community, especially now, because of the recent war in Ukraine...New York is a conglomerate of a lot of cultures, and we love sharing our culture.”

The Saint George Ukrainian Festival kicks off this Friday, May 16, at the Saint George Ukrainian Catholic Church at 30 E. 7th Street.

Highlights from the program include the Szokryli dance ensemble on Saturday at 6:00 pm and Sunday at 3:30 pm.