Vyshyvanka Day, 17 May 2018
A greeting for the day, and a note on the shirts worn by people with no Ukrainian family at all.
A good Vyshyvanka Day to everyone wearing one today.
Every year I see foreign colleagues, ambassadors, business partners and long-term residents wearing one, and every year somebody asks whether that is appropriate.
I have never once encountered a Ukrainian who thought it was not. The reaction is invariably pleasure, and usually a question about where the shirt came from.
That tells you what the object is understood to be here. It is not a closed marker of belonging that outsiders borrow presumptuously; it is a thing people are pleased to see worn, by anyone who means it well.
I will be wearing mine.
A good day to you.
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