Carpathians in summer
The Carpathians are out of time and season. You can talk about them for a long time and a lot. It's better to show! ) Green, mysterious, magical mountains, magnificent landscapes! With morning and evening fogs, transparent dew, bright sun, mountain streams and rivers. And the air! This is beyond words. Clean, fresh, aromatic. Breathe - do not breathe!
In the forests of the Carpathians, you can very quickly pick up a lot of chanterelles, porcini mushrooms, Athenian berries. This is what the locals call blueberries.
In July 2016, we visited friends in the village of Usteriki, Verkhovyna district, Ivano-Frankivsk region.
The village is located in the mountains, at an altitude of about 600 m, in a picturesque place where the Black Cheremosh and White Cheremosh rivers join. If you look closely, the water in the rivers is different in color.
When the river is not too full, you can swim in it without fear that it will carry you over the stones.
You can walk across the rivers on wooden, staggering bridges.
Almost every house and on the road there are chapels. Any passer-by can sit, relax by the chapel, be alone with his thoughts. If the chapel is covered, then you can hide in it from the wind and rain in bad weather.
10 days in the Hutsul region flew by unnoticed. We were passing by in Kosovo at the souvenir market, where we bought dried mushrooms, various cheeses, wooden plates, a box, small souvenirs for gifts. There are a lot of vyshyvankas embroidered with beads, towels, plaids on the market. In Kolomyia, we went to the Pysanka Museum of Decorative Easter Eggs, where you can see exhibits from different regions of Ukraine and around the world.
In Verkhovyna we visited the house-museum of musical instruments of Nikolai Ilyuk, whose father took part in the film "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Sergei Parajanov. This film was shot in Verkhovyna.
Earlier, Verkhovyna was called Zhabye. There are many legends flying around the name. Or is it from a large number of toads in the river, or from the name of the first inhabitant of the village of Zhabka, or from something else.
Hutsuls are cheerful, musical, hospitable people. We were treated to homemade sausage, porcini mushrooms in sour cream, dumplings, guslyanka, banosh on homemade sour cream and cornmeal, cheese. And I was dressed up in a national Hutsul costume)
There will be an opportunity - I will definitely come to the Carpathians again and again!
