Vyshyvanka Day, 15 May 2008

A good Vyshyvanka Day to everyone wearing one today.

This is still a small thing. A few years old, spread mostly by students and by people who heard about it from students, and today you notice it rather than being surrounded by it — an embroidered collar under a jacket on the metro, three or four people in an office rather than half of it.

I like it at this size. There is something appealing about a national observance that nobody has organised, that has no official status and no ceremony, and that exists only because a certain number of people decided independently to put on a shirt.

It will probably grow. Things like this usually do. But it is worth recording that it began without permission.

A good day to you.