Creative team of Mavka. The Forest Song made the first ethnographical trip to Pirogovo

In the midst of Mavka. The Forest Song project development, the team from Animagrad studio got its wants and needs met: on the very first warm spring day it went to Pirogovo, Kyiv Museum of Folk Architecture and Life.

The trip took place during a Pancake Week, which was not by accident: the main events in animation movie unfold against the background of spring ritual festivities. The team was accompanied by Oleksa Dolya, an ethnographer, director of Folklore and Ethnography Centre in the Institute of Philology and an expert of the project.

When we were strolling along damp trails, it seemed that the time turned back and the we have returned for several centuries ago, with houses featuring household items, clothes and icons – the oldest one built in 1580s; we looked at mills and churches forming the image of rural life and creating a feeling of real immersion in the ambience of a Ukrainian village: a blacksmith’s workshop where the iron is still hot and a courtyard where happy people performing festive rituals are about to appear.

Studying traditions and customs is key, because we are all for credibility of the details, seemingly insignificant at a first glance but then turning out to be very important. Together with the artists’ imagination, this will help to create a colorful and unusual world of Polesye.

“There are things to write about and draw to fill our fantasy world. We want spring, songs and reels. We want a fairy tale, which ends with hope!” says Aleksandra Ruban, film’s director. 

The inspired creative group continues its work on the animation movie and plans a getaway to Polesye (Volyn region) with Oleksa Dolya.