The story
Sorochyntsi Fair in Velyki Sorochyntsi
The Sorochyntsi Fair in Velyki Sorochyntsi village near Poltava, Ukraine, is the country's largest and most famous traditional trade-and-culture fair, made famous by Nikolai Gogol's story The Fair at Sorochyntsi. Discontinued under the Soviet planned economy after 1922, it was revived in 1966 and declared Ukraine's official national fair by presidential decree in 1999. The five-day fair runs annually around the last weekend of August, showcasing Opishnya pottery, Reshetilivka embroidery, traditional clothing, pysanky, and hand-carved wooden items.
Around the last weekend of August each year, Velyki Sorochyntsi, a village near Poltava that most of the world would otherwise never have heard of, hosts five days of trading, craft, and celebration that carries the weight of both literature and national symbolism.