Folk group "Vesnyanka". Zaprosyny na Polis'ke vesillja. (Invitation to Polissya Wedding)

During the years of its existence – and this is from 1983 – the folklore group "Vesnyanka" had time to accumulate just an enormous amount of authentic song and ceremonial material. But the issue is not only collection – "Vesnyanka" has managed to reproduce, restore a number of almost lost ceremonies. Their special value is that the group from the very beginning attributes special attention to Rinve Polissya. And it means that it explores the cultural layer, the roots of which reach the oldest times. As known, Polissya songs and ceremonies still preserve features and remnants of beliefs that were formed more than a thousand years ago, as early as in pagan times. The disc that you see is already the fifth album by the group. Wedding has always been a special mystery. It is now that city life makes everything simpler, if not negates. Earlier, a marriage of a man and a woman became, I think, a reflection of relations between the earth and sky. As the celestial air is born in the earth – as the earth leans to the sky, longs for it stretching its green children... Thus, this ceremony was to harmonize the space – and, actually, that is exactly what you will hear here. Interlacing and restoration of the balance between the swift and slow, soft and sharp, bright and gloomy – this space comprises everything, and everything harmoniously co-acts in it. However, it is easier to listen to it than to explain it.

Anton Jozhik Lejba (Hedgehog)