US biggest festival of Ukrainian culture held in state of New York. Photos

The festival was attended by the officials of the State of New York and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United States Valeriy Chaly, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"The purpose of Soyuzivka is to create a peculiar heritage center, where everybody would feel like Ukrainians," Roma Lisovych, the treasurer of the Ukrainian National Association, said in a commentary to an Ukrinform correspondent.

She added that the festival is visited by up to ten thousand guests annually. The festival’s name "Soyuzivka" comes from the oldest Ukrainian organization in the United States, the Ukrainian National Association, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year. In 1952, the UNS acquired the land plot in the mountains in the north of New York, which resembled the Carpathian landscapes, in order to establish a Ukrainian heritage center.

Each year, the festival participants raise money to help initiatives related to Ukraine. Such fundraising campaigns became particularly important with the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014.

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