Over 400 people participated in a rally to promote Vyshyvanka Day in Edmonton on May 18. They unfurled a 20-metre-long Ukrainian flag at the Alberta Legislature Grounds. Photo: Olena Soichenko
NP-UN Western Bureau
Over 400 people participated in a rally to promote Vyshyvanka Day in Edmonton on May 18. They first gathered at Grant MacEwan College then marched to the Alberta Legislature Grounds where a 20-metre-long Ukrainian flag was unfurled.
The rally also marked the sad anniversary of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by the Russian criminal authorities and called on Canada to increase support for Ukraine and pressure on Russia to stop the war.
Vyshyvanka Day, sometimes referred to as World Vyshyvanka Day, is a Ukrainian holiday celebrated on the third Thursday of May. On this day, thousands of Ukrainians across the world wear vyshyvankas (traditional embroidered shirts) to demonstrate their national identity and patriotism.
The word vyshyvanka is derived from the Ukrainian word for embroidery, “vyshyvka”. Embroidery has a rich history in Ukraine and occupies an important place among Ukrainian decorative arts. Ukrainian embroidery varies from region to region. Although red and black are the most common colors of Ukrainian embroidery, other color schemes such as red and blue, white on white and a combination of several bright colors are popular in specific regions.
The Tatar deportation, known in the Tatar language as Sürgünlik began on May 18, 1944, when a 32,000-strong NKVD special force rounded up Crimean Tatars for deportation. They were loaded onto trucks, taken in convoys to Simferopol and Bakhchysaray and were then reloaded into cattle cars for transport to the Central Asian steppes. Crimean Tatars who lived in mountainous regions inaccessible to NKVD trucks were rounded up and shot. The inhabitants of the Arabat Spit, a group of inaccessible fishing villages, were herded onto a barge which was then towed into the Azov Sea and scuttled. A nearby boat with Soviet machine gunners made sure that no one survived.
Within three days, there were no more Crimean Tatars, or as Communist officials in Moscow stated, they had “created a new Crimea according to Russian order.” Crimean Tatar books were burned. All Crimean Tatar towns and villages were given Russian names, and Muslim cemeteries and mosques were razed. Stalin ordered the editors of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia to remove all references to the Crimean Tatars, in effect, erasing them from history.
Share on Social Media
