Summer Festivals in Transcarpathia

Every traveller has had, at least once in their life, a summer so incredible, rich and vibrant that they will remember it forever! For it is the most eagerly awaited season of the year - a time of incredible adventures, joy and wild fun. So why not spend your summer colourfully and unforgettably, among the picturesque Carpathian mountains? All the more so because the summer festivals in Transcarpathia - are a host of diverse and richly themed events, a wonderful chance to relax and be sure to sample something delicious and Transcarpathian.

Throughout the summer, many festivals take place in various corners of Transcarpathia. They are organised for people with different tastes and budgets. Each is unique in its own way - with its own special microclimate, character and highlights.

Summer festivals in Transcarpathia in June

Summer begins in the Carpathians on a grand scale, offering its guests a good dozen wonderful and «mouth-watering» festivals all at once.

At the folk «Hamora» festival of the blacksmith’s art tourists and enthusiasts of hot and cold metalworking come to the village of Lysechovo in the Irshava district from far and wide. For several years running now, this celebration has been held in the only working forge in the European Union. This is the so-called Hamora - a genuine forge-museum on a 19th-century water mill. The festival programme features - live folk music, master classes in blacksmithing, pottery, coopering, wickerwork, weaving and embroidery. For everyone who wishes there is an exhibition and sale of ironwork items and a tasting of Transcarpathian cuisine and wine.

Especially popular is the traditional Brides’ Parade in Uzhhorod, which each year astonishes with its grandeur and the originality of the wedding gowns, hairstyles, make-up, bouquets and cortèges. On this day, every girl and woman of the city who wishes can feel like a real bride! And the show the organisers put on is captivating and dazzling!

June in Transcarpathia - is berry season, and so it would simply be a crime not to celebrate the harvest here! The «Berry Field» festival in the village of Diula in the Vynohradiv district invites you to immerse yourself in a true strawberry paradise. It is in the Vynohradiv district that they ripen earliest in Ukraine. There are so many berries here that even mass sales do not “save the day”. So the resourceful local housewives make jams, sweet compotes, confitures and delicious lekvar (Transcarpathian fruit preserve) from them. Anyone who wishes can sample it nearby at the Lekvar Museum in the village of Botar.

And in the Uzhhorod-district village of Patskanyovo yet another fruit festival is celebrated - the «Red Cherry» festival. During it, tourists are entertained by folk musicians, and there are cherry-themed culinary and even sporting contests, a cherry fair, various master classes and tastings.

To the colourful «Milk River» cheese festival the village of Stuzhytsia invites you, in the picturesque Uzhanskyi National Park in the Velykyi Bereznyi district. The programme of this event is interesting and original: master classes, competitions, interactive activities, a fair and sale of cheese and organic dairy products, excursions, film screenings, a tasting of Transcarpathian cuisine, including syrnyky, hombovtsi, halushky, cheese pies and cheese desserts.

In addition, June will host such well-known summer festivals in Transcarpathia, as the festival of folk artistic creativity «Rainbow over the Tysa» in Khust, the festival «Tysa - the Danube’s younger sister» in the village of Dilove in the Rakhiv district, the regional festival «Ringing Pearls of Verkhovyna» in the Volovets district, the international festival of ethnic theatres of national minorities «Ethno-Dia-Sphera» in Mukachevo and others.

Summer festivals in Transcarpathia in July

At the height of summer, the region’s festival life turns towards cool places - into the depths of the Carpathian primeval forests, to the cold Carpathian mountain streams. It is in the Carpathians, not far from the Shypit waterfall there takes place a loud, legendary, informal hippie festival , while in various corners of the region people celebrate Ivan Kupala - with traditional folk festivities, floating wreaths on the stream, fortune-telling, a bonfire and the search for the fern flower.

In the village of Uklyn in the Svaliava district people celebrate a mineral water festival, of which Transcarpathia has an endless supply, and in Nyzhnie Selyshche in the Khust district - the musical ethno-festival «Selyska Spivanka», in the village of Solotvyno in the Tiachiv district - the national-minorities festival «Melodies of the Salt Lakes», in Yasinia in the Rakhiv district - an educational festival-showcase of active tourism and recreation in the Carpathians.

In the Berehove-district village of Chetfalva there takes place a cabbage-roll festival. The programme features - lively contests in preparing and tasting Transcarpathian cabbage rolls (more than 20 kinds), a competition for the most miniature and the most gigantic cabbage roll, fairs and performances by folk musicians.

A vibrant event of the summer is the annual International Bikers’ Festival «Music Bike Ukraine» in Uzhhorod , held with the support of MFC «Padonky Svitu». Bikers gather at the three-day rally from every corner of the world; famous and legendary rock bands and rock performers appear here, and there are a motorcycle parade, competitions and stunt shows.

In July the people of Transcarpathia love a good joke, so they invite you to hear their quips at the international festivals of humour and satire «Zakarpatskyi Slovoblud» in Uzhhorod and the colourful «Berbenytsi Figliv» in Yasinia in the Rakhiv district. Moreover, in the middle of summer, for a few days young people create their own super-state - « Student Republic» in the picturesque Dubky nature spot in Transcarpathia.

Summer festivals in Transcarpathia in August

For dessert, in summer the people of Transcarpathia will suggest visiting some very colourful, musical and delicious festivals. One of them - the lecho festival in the village of Velyka Bakta in the Berehove district. This is a traditional gastro-festival of the Hungarian dish lecho. It is so beloved that in Transcarpathia it is cooked with great pleasure. Another culinary highlight of August - the «Plum Lekvar» festival in the Berehove-district village of Hecha. As part of it, guests are offered a tasting and master classes in making Transcarpathian fruit butter - lekvar, dishes of Transcarpathian and Hungarian cuisine , which are made with the preserve (kalachi, palynka (plum brandy), pancakes, hombovtsi and even sausage!), various competitions, folk games and fairs.

In August, on the Carpathian slopes, a very tasty and wholesome berry ripens en masse - the bilberry, which the people of Transcarpathia call «yafyna». It is to this berry that the locals have dedicated the «Verkhovyna Yafyna» festival, which is held every year in the village of Huklyvyi in the Volovets district. It is in the environs of this remote spot that the largest bilberry plantations in the region and the country are found, with the berries even exported abroad. Only at this festival will you taste genuine bilberry pancakes, hombovtsi, varenyky, cakes, fruit butter and homemade bilberry wine.

No less renowned is the folk ethno-festival «The Trembitas Call to Synevyr», which takes place on the shore of the beautiful high-altitude Synevyr lake in Mizhhiria. The programme of this colourful celebration features - performances by local folk artists, kolomyikas and Carpathian melodies. There is also a tasting of Transcarpathian cuisine and wine for gourmets. And the fair of folk craftsmen’s wares and organic produce, an exhibition of antiquities and an introduction to folk traditions and customs will pleasantly surprise you.

Among other colourful August festivals - the Day of the Narrow-Gauge Railway in Irshava, the folk celebration «Kolochava Echo of the Tereblya Valley» in the village of Kolochava in the Mizhhiria district, the weaving festival in the Berehove district, the celebration «Mukachevo Calls Its Friends», the corn festival in the Vynohradiv district, the festival of Hungarian folk art and the «Obzhynky» harvest festival in the Uzhhorod district, and many others.