I picked up several copies of this set of plates from a souvenir vendor on the Maidan, Kyiv’s main square, back in the 1990s.  One I kept for myself; the others I used in teaching classes in pysankarstvo to children from internaty (the orphanage-schools of Ukraine) at summer camps. I would send the plates, along with my instruction sheets, their pysanky, and styluses and dyes, back with them to the internaty, so they could continue making pysanky after they reached home.  And many did.

The pysanky in this set of plates are by Erast Binyashevsky, and were published in the 1968 in a small book which had a smaller run, most of which was sold abroad. It is not available, although seems to have been reprinted (in a way) within «Світ Українськоч Писанки».  The pysanky and other illustrations within its pages have found their way into many modern Ukrainian pysanka books and onto many Ukrainian web sites.

This set of plates is out of print, although copies can still be occasionally found.  I am including it here, on these pages, simply to share Binyashevsky’s work with more of the world, and to help more people become better acquainted with real traditional pysanka designs.

The pysanky painted for us by Binyashevsky are identified in this set of plates only by geographic location.  In his book, Binyashevsky also gave the names of the pysanky, which are sadly missing from this set. (Note: many of the pysanky that Binayshevsky gave names to did not have names in the original sources–Kulzhynsky and others–so the probability exists that these names were not authentic folk descriptions, but his own.)

The Plates:

(NOTE: If there is a copyright owner, and if he or she objects, please contact me via the link below and I will remove these plates from my site.)

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