Preparation for Easter starts one week before the holiday (a week called “Holy Week”) and begins with Willow Sunday. Unlike people of other countries, who call this celebration of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem “Palm Sunday,” Ukrainians use willow switches instead of palm fronds as their symbolic branches to decorate their homes. This change is due to the willow’s symbolic meaning in the pre-Christian pagan culture as well as lack of local palm trees.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are spent preparing food for Easter: baking sweet egg bread (Paska) and dyeing eggs (krashanky). On Clean Thursday, people clean the house and themselves before the big holiday; many people even visit the bathhouse (banya) on this day. Good Friday (also called Mourning Friday) is the day when Christ died. People are not supposed to eat anything and spend the day at church. In theory, no work is allowed, though this is not very practical in modern life!

Baking Paska and making krashanky and pysanky are some of the most treasured holiday traditions. Paska is a delicious, sweet, festive bread that is rich in butter and eggs and baked only for Easter. There are more than 40 recipes for Paska, but it is to be baked only from the best wheat flour. You can easily recognize one by its tall and cylindrical shape with a rounded top, which is usually decorated with dough ornaments or a white glaze. It smells divine, and no wonder: its flavorings may include ginger, saffron, vanilla, citron and rum.
Paska’s pre-Christian origin is evident in a variety of interesting beliefs, rituals and superstitions. Modern Paska usually has a white glaze made from sugar and egg and is decorated on top with colored wheat grains or poppy seeds. However, according to an old custom, which is still practised in some Ukrainian regions, Paska was decorated with symbolic ornaments connected with spring themes: the awakening of nature, resurrection and rebirth. The most widespread ornaments include the cross and the tryhver, an ancient three-armed symbol. The significance of the cross in Christianity is well-known, but in pre-Christian times, when people’s beliefs were based on nature and its phenomena, the cross symbolised four cardinal directions or four seasons. The tryhver symbol has three rays originating from one dot, meaning air, fire and water.
Baking of Paskas is a ceremonial affair, during which the household was expected to stay quiet and still. The women preparing the bread were told to keep their thoughts pure, and it was strictly forbidden to eat or even taste paska before it was blessed at the Easter Service on Sunday.

In order to dye eggs and prepare krashanky, Ukrainians traditionally use natural dyes like onion peel for rich mahogany and beet root for reds and pinks, but nowadays you can find a wide range of food coloring to dye Easter Eggs.
Another important Ukrainian tradition is preparing pysankas, which are eggs painted by hand. A pysanka is a real piece of art, which requires good amount of time and effort to create! The word “pysanka” comes from the Ukrainian word for “to write” (“pysaty”) and people believe here that pysanka protects homes from evil spirits and misfortune.
The main difference between “krashanka” and “pysanka” is that “pysanka” is decorated raw egg (drained through a tiny drilled hole so that they are empty inside and may be preserved), whereas “krashanka” is dyed hardboiled egg, usually one simple color, meant for eating at the Easter feast. In Ukrainian culture, eggs were always considered as a source of life and symbols of the rebirth of the earth. The symbolism of eggs as religious objects dates back to Ukraine’s pre-Christian past, and decorated eggs have always been a part of religious celebrations in Ukraine.