North America’s largest BWV Toronto Ukrainian Festival becomes the biggest in its history

The 26th Bloor West Village Toronto Ukrainian Festival, which was held from Friday to Sunday, has become the biggest in its history, featuring “some of the most immersive opportunities to learn about Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian history, and the unjust Russian invasion,” according to its organizers’ press release, who anticipated 900,000 visitors.

The theme of this year’s festival, North America’s largest show of Ukrainian culture, which returned to Bloor West Village, a shopping district in Toronto, Ontario, after a two-year break caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, was “Gratitude, a thank you and appreciation to Ukraine’s 70+ supporting governments from around the world.”

The scale of the festival is impressive. Over 60 musicians and singers, as well as bands, ensembles, choirs, and dance teams from Canada, Ukraine, the United States, and Australia, made about 150 appearances on the festival’s four stages. Jerry Heil (Yana Shemaeva), a popular Ukrainian singer and songwriter, was the festival headliner. During the Artists with Ukraine concert, recent immigrants and refugee artists from other countries affected by war or conflict shared the stage with eastern European artists. The BWV Toronto Ukrainian Festival also included a film festival with a brand-new selection of films, interactive art installations “Doors” and “Brain Washing Machine,” and an immersive exhibition “Ukraine: Land of the Brave.”

“This year, every event from and about Ukraine is special and extremely important. We have to talk about our country in different languages, in different forms and manifestations. And namely, the cultural dimension is the most expressive. Bravery is a word that is now synonymous with Ukraine,” said Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukraine’s Culture & Information Policy Minister, addressing the festival’s organizers and guests.

The festival kicked into high gear on Saturday morning with a huge March of Solidarity along Bloor Street West. “The festival traditionally began with a festive procession,” Liudmyla Hryhorchuk, one of the participants, shares her impressions. “One of Toronto’s largest streets was completely closed to traffic. The lively blue-and-yellow column moved from High Park to the festival’s stage. Hundreds of people in national Ukrainian costumes called on all Canadians to support Ukraine, Ukrainians, and our soldiers. The anthem of our country and the anthem of the Sich Riflemen were sung. And when the Chervona Kalyna played, everyone sang it: not only the participants of the festive procession but also the spectators who, although they were not Ukrainians by nationality, were our like-minded people and friends in spirit.”

And of course, there was a traditional art and handicraft market, and Ukrainian cuisine was offered everywhere.

The Bloor West Village Toronto Ukrainian Festival was established under the umbrella of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, a UWC member, in 1995, when Toronto was twinned with Kyiv, according to the festival’s website. Originally known as the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival, it was meant to be a showcase of the most widely identifiable aspects of Ukrainian culture in Canada – music, dance, food, visual arts, and community.