A famous Brussels landmark – sculpture Manneken Pis (fountain sculpture depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin) – will be dressed in Ukrainian Cossack costume on the Independence Day of Ukraine.
One of the organizers of the action, the author of the Park Kyivan Rus Project, Volodymyr Yanchenko, said that the idea of marking the Independence Day of Ukraine in Brussels shows that Kyiv is a cultural and political center of Europe, just as Brussels is the capital of the modern European Union.
"Each country and each people have their own unique traditions. The Belgium tradition of dressing up the Manneken Pis is very old, it has existed for more than three centuries. We supported this project, because we understand that through showing respect to other’s traditions we learn to respect our own," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday, August 17.
In turn, the organizer of celebration in Brussels, the president of the European Association of Ukrainians, Oleksiy Tolkachov, noted that this event was founded in 2007.
"Then the Brussels landmark was presented with a Ukrainian national suit exactly reconstructing a male costume of the Cossacks epoch in the 17-18th centuries. The suit is kept at the royal museum in Brussels, [cataloged as] number 791." Tolkachov also noted that, unfortunately, the tradition of the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine in Brussels has been remaining only a public initiative.
Today, the Brussels landmark has more than 800 different costumes. This year, the world’s strongest man, Ukrainian Vasyl Virastiuk will dress the Manneken Pis in Brussels.
