Simply Slavic delivers sights, sounds of Eastern Europe

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Simply Slavic, the downtown festival created specifically to celebrate Youngstown’s colorful Slavic community, will return Saturday from noon to midnight on East Federal Street, just east of Central Square.

The event began in 2011 to celebrate the heritage of the region’s large number of Slavic descendants and to educate the community about Slavic culture.

“Simply Slavic has become more than a one-day event,” said Ken Shirilla, festival chairman. “It’s more like a movement. By getting to know each other while working on the festival, Slavic community leaders have discovered ways in which they can collaborate to educate about Slavic cultures.”

One example of such pooling of resources is the new Youngstown State University Slavic Student Association.

In keeping with its mission, this year’s festival will showcase the traditional food, music, dance and customs of the various Slavic ethnicities represented in the Mahoning Valley. The lineup of performances, exhibits and vendors includes:

An ecumenical blessing and parade of flags with representatives from selected faiths and parishes featuring one of the region’s ethnic choirs.

The Slavic kitchen, featuring homemade foods from more than a half-dozen area churches, businesses and ethnic groups.

The ethnic heritage tent, where Slavic groups will exhibit educational materials such as maps, flags, pictures, language lessons and a display of famous immigrants.

A marketplace of vendors selling imported dolls, eggs, linens and apparel.

A baking contest, where amateurs can submit their favorite traditional Slavic baked goods to be judged by area Slavic celebrities.

The Wasko stage, featuring four of the region’s most colorful folk-dance troupes, the St. Nicholas Russian Balalaika Orchestra and the renowned Harmonia Folk Band.

The festival thrives on tradition but also seeks to improve every year.

“For 2014, we are realigning to a more efficient footprint, which will allow people to interact in a better street-fair-like layout,” said Shirilla. “We also will have more food vendors to feed people later into the schedule and provide intimate acoustic dance music around a fire in the later hours of the evening.”

Because the festival coincides with the Slavic tradition of Ivan Kupala Day, which celebrates the summer solstice, special performance elements will be added to the festival to reflect the event.

The Youngstown public library will have a pop-up library at the festival from noon to 3 p.m. with information that would interest the Valley’s 75,000 Slavic descendants.

The modern-day European nations representing the origins of Slavic ancestry are Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. Many Slavic descendants of Carpatho-Rusyn heritage also reside in the Youngstown area.

Support for Simply Slavic comes from the city of Youngstown, Sts. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Sts. Peter & Paul Croatian Church, PolishYoungstown, the American Slovak Cultural Association of Mahoning Valley, the Carpatho-Rusyn Heritage Society and many others.