Kolomyia embroidery market

The art of embroidery in Ukraine goes back centuries. The Kolomyia lands were densely populated by Trypillian tribes. Trypillian women richly decorated their clothes with paintings, embroidery, and applications. Unfortunately, the fabrics themselves have not survived. Nowadays, you can find shirts with Trypillian culture ornaments on the market. The most famous motif is the "curves" or "infinite". Historians do not deny that the art of embroidery in Ukraine dates back to the Stone Age. Archaeological finds from the Paleolithic period, in particular near the village of Mizyna in Chernihiv region, show that embroidery was used in ancient times. In the burials of the first centuries AD, in particular in the Sokolova Mogyla mound discovered near the village of Kovalivka, Mykolaiv region, archaeologist H. Kovpanenko found the remains of woolen clothes decorated with colorful embroidery.

Under Soviet rule, embroidery ceased to be relevant and gathered dust in Ukrainians' closets. Recently, however, clothes with embroidery elements have gained great popularity again.

The main reason for the emergence of such a phenomenon as the Kolomyia Night Embroidery Bazaar was a combination of several factors: the permanent crisis in the region - the massive throwing of the able-bodied population into the streets, the long and established traditions of folk needlework, and the large share of entrepreneurial, talented, and proactive people in the vicinity of the unofficial capital of Hutsulshchyna. Some went to trade, some went to work in distant lands, and some began to make simple handmade goods at home and bring them to Torgovytsia for sale. Vyshyvankas have always been sold at Kolomyia markets. Over time, an unofficial and disorganized market parallel to Torgovytsia was formed, where active local women sold their own handmade goods. This was the beginning of the night market for embroidery, which for a long time functioned right on the roadway at the entrance to Kolomyia's Torgovytsia.

...Ukrainian enterprises were closing down, low-quality imported goods were flooding the country and displacing local products from traditional markets. At one point in time, the city's Torgovytsia market lacked space to sell local agricultural and livestock products. To meet the needs of the population in this area, local entrepreneur V. Shevchuk built and opened a specialized market "Kolomyia Kolos" near the old fairgrounds to sell products from and for the village. And later, while the administration of Torgovytsia was "sleeping," he moved all the trade related to embroidery to his territory, offering people low rates and certain amenities. Thus, the city solved the problem of eliminating at least one place of disorderly trade. This is how the only specialized night embroidery fair in Ukraine was born.

During the Soviet era, structural units of the Golovkhudprom worked in Kolomyia: the Rosa Luxemburg and Seventeenth of September factories in Kolomyia, the Kosiv Art and Production Association Hutsulshchyna, and the Fedkovych Factory in Vyzhnytsia. In addition, Kolomyia had quite powerful light industry enterprises: garment, weaving, curtain, and shoe factories. During the Soviet era, there were several factories in the Kolomyia district that produced souvenirs with elements of arts and crafts. In addition, there are artistic educational institutions in neighboring towns that have more than a century of history. Even today, they study the art of embroidery in theory and master various techniques of this needlework in practice. These are the Vyzhnytsia College of Applied Arts and the Kosiv State Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts. Lviv residents play a separate and very important role in the creation and operation of this bazaar. At the beginning of the market's existence, a large part of the products made by Kolomyia craftsmen went to the capital of Galicia.

The embroidery market in Kolomyia is open every Thursday. The area is quite small and covers only 3 thousand square meters. In order to trade there, you have to pay 5 hryvnias if you sell your work without an equipped place. Renting a space costs from 120 to 800 hryvnias. The price varies depending on the location and size of the space. There are 29 entrepreneurs at the market who rent premises to trade on a permanent basis. Their outlets are essentially small shops. A few dozen more entrepreneurs sell from tents and folding tables. And a few hundred embroiderers sell directly from their hands. The Kolomyia Night Embroidery Bazaar is primarily about several thousand Ukrainian women, hard-working bees, who create miracles on the canvas with needles and thread. For the vast majority of them, it's a hard way to earn a piece of bread. You need to invest material, thread, a lot of labor and, most importantly, be able to sell. Competition among embroiderers has created a tradition of low prices for handmade items. But it also created a wholesale buyer who not only buys embroidery, but buys a lot of it. With the emergence of stable demand in the form of wholesale buyers, machine embroidery appeared at the market and its share is steadily growing. However, the competition in this segment is high, so mostly this embroidery is of high quality and very beautiful.

The peculiarity is that the market is open from two in the morning to 8-9 in the morning. The humorous version of why it works at night is that the tax authorities are asleep. A more realistic version explains the night mode by the fact that at the beginning, for the vast majority of participants, it was an additional activity and they could not allocate their daytime time for it. When looking for reasons for the market's nighttime operation, in addition to the talents and traditions of local women in needlework, we should take into account their fantastic diligence. Perhaps the geographical location had something to do with it. After all, most wholesale agricultural markets in neighboring Poland also operate at night.

At the Kolomyia Embroidery Market, you can buy embroidery from the hands of real master embroiderers. For them, manual labor is the main source of income, and for buyers, it is an opportunity to get a unique item. Many people come here just to meet the craftswomen in person and order an exclusive product. Here you can buy wedding towels, stylish embroidered shirts, blouses, dresses, fashionable dresses with embroidered elements, Ukrainian national costumes and uniforms, beautiful embroidered children's clothes, as well as fabrics, threads, and beads. Handmade items are especially honored. There is also embroidery that is put into production. It is mostly machine-made.

Two colors are mine, two colors, both on the canvas, both in my soul, two colors are mine, two colors: Red is love, and black is sorrow...

The song with lyrics by Dmytro Pavlychko has been known to every Kolomyia resident since childhood. The poet, a native of this region, describes a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt that has long been made in two colors - red and black - characteristic of our region. These are the most common colors in Ukrainian embroidery and are associated with joys and sorrows.

You can get to Kolomyia by rail via Ivano-Frankivsk (65 km away), Lviv (200 km), Chernivtsi (80 km), or Ternopil (190 km), and there is a good bus service from there. Several passenger trains and a few local diesel trains pass through Kolomyia. People who live near the market are willing to take in guests for the night, though for a nominal fee. Kolomyia also has a wide network of hotels and private estates where you can spend the night and relax.

What to see: In addition to fashionable shopping, there is a lot to see in Kolomyia: the Museum of Pysanka, known throughout Ukraine, the National Museum of Folk Art of Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttya, the Museum of the History of Kolomyia, the Kolomyia Town Hall, where Ivan Franko was imprisoned, many churches, one of the oldest wooden churches - the Annunciation Church, built without a single nail, and, of course, the souvenir market. And most importantly, you will feel the spirit of the ancient Prykarpattia city, its identity, comfort and hospitality.