Kovalevka

In Kovalevka we were interviewing an elderly Ukrainian woman whose daughter had married one of the local Germans and moved to Germany when the Soviet Union collapsed. The younger couple had come back from Germany to visit. I asked about weddings, and the man who now lived in Germany spoke German, and had the very German name of Jacob Blok showed the wedding photographs of his older sisters. They were wearing white dresses, but on their heads were very Ukrainian-looking wreaths, complete with ribbons. The weddings had taken place in Kovalevka and the family, while maintaining its German identity, saw no problem with adopting Ukrainian wedding wreaths.