St. Nicolas Day, Western Ukraine’s Christmas, is one of our obscure national holidays that will hopefully acquire nationwide acclaim. Its very atmosphere is intrinsically Christian, wishing well to all. On this date St. Nicolas presents children with Christmas gifts, fulfilling their most cherished dreams of the preceding year.
In Kyiv, this festive occasion was observed by the L’Art Gallery on Andriyivsky uzviz. Here the adults refused to wait for Santa Claus and decided to help children in need as best they could.
Charity is a very old tradition in Ukraine. Suffice it to recall names such as Tereshchenko, Khanenko, other Ukrainian businessmen and philanthropists who donated huge sums to various benevolent projects, all of whom were branded by Soviet propaganda as enemies. At the time no one in Ukraine [or anywhere in the Soviet empire] could dream of charity [as each and everyone was concerned with one’s own survival]. The benevolent trend received a weak impetus after 1991. This was understandable, as the bourgeoisie was just taking shape, eager to achieve its own pragmatic goals. In addition, it took time to integrate into the Western world, conveying its philosophy to a desperately post-socialist country that abided by completely different laws. It took more than accumulating capital; it was also necessary to learn to make pecuniary donations in a graceful manner. One had to draw a historical circle and nicely return to the epoch of Ukrainian cultural philanthropy.
This was precisely what the Modus Vivendi Ukrainian Businesswomen’s Club (set up last year) has tried to do, staging its first nationwide benevolent project titled Christmas Tree Dreams. Naturally, the project was meant to help the children at 27 Ukrainian boarding schools, those without parents and with various corporeal and mental defects. Considerable work was done under the project, during the year. “Our club established friendly relationships with a number of such children’s homes; we helped them as best we could. Eventually, we embarked on the idea of carrying out an even larger project,” Modus Vivendi President Yevheniya Hubska told The Day, adding that “we were businesswomen, meaning each had a lot of useful contacts, people willing to help but not knowing exactly what they could do and how.” The organizers agreed that holding charity fairs was an effective way to carry out the project. Children could contribute their drawings, paintings, tapestries, various Christmas decorations, etc. More importantly, it was decided to discard the traditional passing of the hat. There were several reasons. First, holding such a charity fair would have public reverberations, so that the next such project would attract even greater public interest. Second, most importantly, that project conveyed a certain message to the children, namely that they were not abandoned, that there were people who really cared about them. This was the greatest Christmas gift. All those present noted the quality of the charity fair display. Not surprising, as the children had long prepared for it. The debut proved an obvious success even in the middle of the soiree. By that time the medium-sized aquarium in which donations and purchases were deposited was almost half-full, mostly containing large American and Ukrainian banknotes. Every buyer was presented with a miniature silver bowtie pin and each attached it to their right lapel and proudly wear it until it was time to leave. I think it was not because they regretted having spent a lot of money, but because they felt being part of a great common cause. The entertainment program included touching renditions by the children’s ensemble Bon- Bon, words of gratitude and poems recited by people from the children’s homes’ management. The guests, aware that they were attending an important public event, conversed among themselves, awaiting the soiree’s culminating Christmas tree auction offering for sale original objets d’art by Ukrainian designers Kristina Husina and Oleksiy Zalevsky, VD One, and a number of other organizations, including Tsiurupyn’s orphanage whose Christmas tree in every way matched its bigger counterparts.
From the auction’s nine lots, the bidders seemed most interested in VD One’s masterpiece. An almost half meter Easter egg made from 100 molten candles borrowed from the Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow, with a miniature Christmas tree inside. The bidding turned out spectacular and the product was sold at $800, to an ovation. The other Christmas trees also sold quickly, at $200-300. After that toys were put up for sale, each selling at $120- 150. Oleksiy Zalevsky, whose pyramidal Christmas tree made from fabric was among the most original items on display, told The Day that at first he had refused to have anything to do with any Christmas tree auctions, but after he had learned about that particular one, and for whose benefit it would be held, he had immediately agreed and set to creative work. The same was true of the Modus Vivendi businesswomen who pledged to spend the proceeds to buy precisely the kind of Christmas gifts the inmates of the children’s homes dreamed about. When asked how often would the club stage such projects, Yevheniya Hubska replied, “So far we plan it on an annual basis, but we are businesswomen, we have enough energy and more, so we might have bigger plans, keeping our fingers crossed...”
