©Alexey Pidsosonny/NTDTV

Riding horses at the Tripillian culture festival.

Rzhyschev, Ukraine - A big crowd gathered in the small village of Rzhyschiv near Kyiv this past weekend to bring to life and celebrate 5,000 years of Trypillian culture. According to archeological data, Tripillia is an ancient civilization, which populated parts of modern-day Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova between 5,400 and 2,750 B.C.

It is not by accident that a small Ukrainian town of Rzhyschev was hosting this annual festival. It is here, 30 miles away from Kyiv, that ancient settlements of Tripillian civilization were found, stretching all the way between the Danube and Dnipro rivers.

Since the discovery of these settlements, volunteers have been encouraged to take part in the rebuilding of the ancient Trypillian lifestyle, including houses, dishes, clothes, and tapestry. The festival also features authentic Tripillian entertainment: horse-riding and live music with characteristic rigorous drumming. Archeologists who have been making excavations of ancient settlements for over 18 years told us how old the Trypillian civilization is.

Vladyslav Chabanuk, director of the Trypillian Culture Recreation Center, said: "So we can talk about the Trypillian culture, which had existed on the territory of Ukraine, Moldova and Hungary for over 1,500 years. It existed approximately 5-6,000 years ago, maybe even in more remote times."

Weaving and the art of tapestry were also presented at the festival. Anyone could sit at the big wooden loom and try to make real linen, which our ancestors made ages ago.

Natalia Talagey, instructor and master of weaving: "If you look carefully at this linen, you'll see that each thread is next to another one, and then we push the shuttle, and form different patterns, where threads are separated."

A student from the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy spent more that two hours making a tapestry. She said that it was very difficult to explain the happiness and harmony she felt: "I like doing it, and these are the colors that I have chosen: red, yellow, and green. First of all, the colors are the most commonly spread in nature, and secondly, when they are together they bring joy to people."

Making clay pots was also a common sight at the festival. Speaking of pots, it is through excavations of burnt clay artifacts that archeologists were able to trace the whereabouts of the Tripillian civilization. As it turns out, burnt clay contains characteristic elements that can be traced by modern scientific equipment.

This year's Tripillian culture festival is centered on water. The organizer of the event told us that the aim of the festival is to show not only the ancient culture, but also to reveal the importance of water on earth. He also added that on the premises of the festival alcohol, tobacco, and drugs are prohibited.

Oles Zhuravchyk, the festival's organizer, said, "The main aim of the festival is to send out a message to people: young people, and those who are young at heart, that there could exist alternative pastimes and entertainment outside of the urban lifestyle."

In the next three years organizers are planning to include the themes of earth, fire, and air into the festival. The Tripillian culture festival marks a recent trend among Ukrainian people to return to their heritage, after a long period of dominance by communist culture.