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Pysanky - Ukrainian Eggs

Pysanky - Ukrainian Eggs

The founders of Miami Ad School, Ron & Pippa Seichrist, adopted a little girl, Olya, from Ukraine and then after a few long years of searching, found her brother, Andry, and adopted him, as well. While in Ukraine they visited the village where the children were born and met the biological mother, Maria. Maria, like many in the farm regions of the old Soviet Union, is desperately poor. Trying to find a way to help the biological mother, Ron & Pippa decided to buy her hand-decorated eggs, a centuries-old tradition in Ukraine. To help out, Andry wrote the descriptions on this site and photographed the eggs.

There is no running water or toilet in Maria's house. She cares for her ailing mother and chops and gathers wood to heat the house. Her only income in the past was $57 a month for feeding pigs from dawn to dusk, seven days a week. By purchasing her Ukrainian eggs, you are truly supporting a worthy cause.

THE MEANING OF PYSANSKY Hello, My name is Andry. In Ukraine my sister and I celebrated a holiday called Pascua, which is the same as Easter. It is the children’s most favorite holiday, rather than Christmas, because people in the villages can’t afford presents. For Pascua the women draw on eggs with beeswax and then dip them in colors. These decorated eggs are called Pysanky. All of the styles of the eggs mean different things like happiness, health, wealth, or have a good crop of potatoes. On the morning of Pascua everyone in the village goes to the cemetery. Many people from Kiev come back to the village. Everyone talks a lot and gives each other gifts of the eggs, a special bread with raisins on top, or candy. Of course the eggs and candy are more important! I hope you like Maria’s eggs.
Andry