Fatih Şahin Фатіх Шахін Ukraine, business and international experience — since 2004
National Days & Anniversaries

Easter 2016

The basket, the cloth over it, and the queue outside the church at seven in the morning.

Easter Greeting by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 20 April 2025 in Ukraine   (cropped)
Photo: President Of Ukraine from Україна · CC0

Christ is risen. A peaceful Easter to your household.

The detail of this day I have come to like most is the queue. Early on Easter morning, outside a church, a long line of people each holding a basket with a cloth over it, waiting to have it blessed.

Everybody is a little cold and slightly impatient. The baskets are visibly different — some elaborate, some minimal — and nobody appears to be comparing. There is a shared understanding that the queue is part of it and that turning up is what counts.

Twenty-something of these now and the queue is what I picture when I think of the day, more than the table afterwards.

Christ is risen.

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