KERHONKSON – The sun shone all day Saturday at Soyuzivka, the Ukrainian resort complex on Foordmore Road on the campus of a former sanitarium for Civil War vets whose vistas many have called akin to the Carpathians, the mountains many from the emerging Eastern European nation recall with fond nostalgia.

It was the resort's annual Ukrainian festival, a big draw for the community that this project of the Ukrainian National Association centers. Parking lots were full, gatekeepers were busy, and on the main stage bands and singers, dancers and kids kept performing all weekend to enthusiastic audiences.

Soyuzivka retains something of the aura of the old resorts that were once such a feature of our area, with strong ethnic ties, symbols, music, food and European languages spoken so commonly that English almost sounded weird in this context.

At Soyuzivka, this goes a few steps further. In the upper part of the site are a series of houses named for Ukrainian cities, and built in Ukrainian style with heralded carved decorations by the noted woodcarver Chemiovsky, with sculptures and paintings on the grounds by the new nation's other top artists of the past century.

Many festival goers book rooms here for the duration of the weekend. And many guests wear the Ukrainian "national costume," too.

Mingling with the crowds, shopping for Ukrainian dresses, t-shirts, hats, and CDs, the mood was lively... although conversations with shoppers always carried a certain concern over what is going on in Eastern Ukraine, even now, off the news and the front pages.

"It is war, still, you know that?" said one lady.

Yet in the ample sunshine, kids swam in the extensive L shaped swimming pool and adults soaked up Ukrainian culture in meetings and the Ukrainian style buildings, where paintings and sculptures celebrate the history of a land of wheat, horses, Cossacks and an awful lot of warfare.

In the evenings, the main stage opened for big shows, with more singers and dancers and, later, a concert by Kozak System in which rap and hip hop rhythms met accordions, Ukrainian orchestral maneuvers and the Ukrainian language, of course.

Perhaps that captures Soyuzivka in 2017, looking forward, but with huge respect for the past. As with all this area its grand grounds look out upon.