The strawberry feast was marked by the residents of the Lymanska AH in the Donetsk Oblast – over one thousand people came to the centre of the urban-type settlement of Yarova to join the celebration.

Yarova has long been famous as a strawberry land in the Donetsk Oblast. If in previous years the Lymanska AH celebrated a strawberry holiday in the centre of the hromada, this year they decided to hold a strawberry festival in Yarova.

“This is the first holiday of such a scale for the settlement,” said Oleh Bohuslavskyi, starosta of the Yarova district. “The hromada day used to be previously celebrated in September, but it is a very right decision for Yarova to celebrate during the strawberry season. People, who cultivate strawberries on their own, can not afford to sell it in bulk, therefore, volumes are gradually decreasing. We hope to revive the strawberry glory of Yarova, give people the opportunity to develop and receive greater feedback from their work.”

"Emergence of new feasts is an important factor in the formation of amalgamated hromadas," said Maksym Tkach, decentralisation adviser of the Donetsk Local Government Development Centre, established with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme. “On the one hand, such a thematic holiday gives a certain economic effect, when guests pay attention to strawberry affair. On the other hand, it gives impetus to the development of culture, emergence of new traditions in the hromada. The identity of the inhabitants starts to form on the new basis.” The expert considers the right approach, when mass events are conducted not only in the central settlement of the AH, but attention is paid to the whole territory.

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