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Slavic Heritage: Traditional food, music on display
Carpatho-Rusyn society’s event celebrates
BOARDMAN
People came to the fourth annual Youngstown-Warren Chapter of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society Vatra – “bonfire” – to join others in getting a taste of their common Rusyn and Slavic roots and some great homemade traditional food, and perhaps have a pivo (beer) around the vatra.
“Pivo is practically a requirement,” said Jim Basista of Weathersfield Township, president of the Youngstown-Warren Chapter.
The vatra, lighted in the evening, is a fall tradition of the Slavic people of the Carpathian mountains in Europe.
The festival was Saturday from noon to 8 p.m. at Infant Jesus of Prague Byzantine Catholic Church in Boardman.
“It’s a chance for people with common ethnic backgrounds to come together. People of the second and third generations are trying to find their roots,” said Mike Vasilchek of Youngstown.
The event brings people to have a good time and to maintain the Slavic culture. The most important reason for the vatra is a chance to meet all the friends, Basista said.
“Ethnicity and citizenship are two different things because of changing borders,” said Dean Poloka of the Pittsburgh area, while talking about the history of the Rusyn and Slovak peoples.
Poloka said the largest concentration of Slavic peoples was in eastern Slovakia, the western Ukraine and the southern tip of Poland.
A story by Robert Democko of Boardman, founding president of the Youngstown-Warren Chapter, illustrated Poloka’s point about ethnicity and citizenship.
“When I visited the homeland, I met a man who had lived in the same house all his life, but had lived in five different countries,” Democko said.
“People want to know where they come from,” he said.
That’s exactly what Cathie McAdams of Concord, Ohio, who grew up in Niles, wanted to know, so she used Ancestry.com to find out she is 81 percent east European, 13 percent Scandanavian, which she did not know, and 1 percent Asian.
McAdams, at Saturday’s event with her husband, Jim, said she was there to “celebrate my Rusyn roots” and enjoy the atmosphere, the food and the music.
Laurel Tombazzi of Hinkley, who is national vice president of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society and mistress of ceremonies for vatra, was instrumental in having April designated Eastern European Month in Ohio.
The annual vatra, she said, is about “never forgetting where you come from.”