From Maidan to Sydney

The large-scale cycling tour and cultural project of the ethnic band Folknery, called “From Maidan to Sydney,” started on October 1. Over the following year, members of the band, the spouse Yaryna Kvitka and Volodymyr Muliar, as well as their fellow traveler Leonid Kanter, will tour 14 countries using a bare minimum of resources. They aim to promote the Ukrainian idea, in particular ideas of the Revolution of Dignity.

“We are positioning the project as a game of survival,” Kvitka told us. “We will take a minimum of things, just genuine necessities: sleeping bags, tents, medicines and food for several days. Should we make a stop in the woods, we will find some fruits or berries and eat them. We will try to limit our spending as well. For now, we project our total tour expenses at 3,000 dollars. We will not live in hotels, because getting used to comfort makes one too lazy to move, while open air conditions help one to keep oneself fit. On previous tours, we spent some nights in city parks or botanical gardens. We set a tent near a cultural center in Finland. We just need to find a suitable site.”

Kvitka’s husband Muliar has long been going on cycling tours, but the idea of this project occurred to him after their first joint trip. “I travel by bike and have decided to invite my wife to share my experience. Our first trip was to Abkhazia, but she maintained that travel for the sake of travel itself was a boring experience. Therefore, we took an Indonesian drum and Ukrainian songs, combined music with travel and then with photography, and implemented it all as our cultural project. It is in its sixth stage already,” Muliar said.

The Folknery plan to visit Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia this time. Most of the route will be covered by bicycle, but crossing from Indonesia to Australia will have to be done by sea.

“We are already fully prepared for everything that may happen to us before crossing into Iran,” Kvitka told us, “and aim to solve any issues arising after that along the way, like some visa issues and other nuances. Preparations to the tour took a month, as we rode 20-30 kilometers daily. There are countries which need some special preparation. In particular, our friends gave us special medicines for India, while I had to take a black dress and shawl for Iran, since all embassy websites stated that women should be dressed inconspicuously there.”

The musicians will familiarize themselves with folklore of other countries and perform their own songs during the tour. Although it is expected to be completed in a year, Kvitka remarked that such efforts were generally prone to delays. “We do not know exactly how long it will take us. Sometimes we drive into one locality, and people redirect us, saying: ‘Visit yet another village, please, they sing really good.’ We then have to deviate from our chosen route and go there,” she explained.

The project participants are bringing souvenirs from Ukraine with them: motanka dolls and traditional Ukrainian ornamented decorations. They will present these souvenirs to people who they will meet during the tour. The Folknery will also bring two  Ukrainian flags with them. One of them is clean and will serve as a writing surface for Ukraine’s well-wishers around the world. The second flag is already covered with the Ukrainians’ appeals to citizens of other countries and the tour’s motto “Peace and Cycling.” This latter flag will be displayed in all countries along the band’s path, and will be presented to the Ukrainian community of Australia at the end of the tour.