
People dance around a huge bonfire on a mountain meadow near the village of Pylypets in Transcarpathia, Ukraine, on Monday, during a celebration of the traditional pagan holiday of Ivana Kupala during the Shipit Festival. The Shipit Festival is the name of the annual gathering of informal youth subcultures. The apogee of the festival is the night of Ivan Kupala, a traditional eastern Slavic holiday that is mainly celebrated in Ukraine, Poland, Belarus and Russia. The traditional celebration relates to the summer solstice when nights are the shortest and includes a number of ancient Slavic rituals. Xinhua |