Ambassador of Ukraine to Estonia Volodymyr Boiechko and his spouse Yuliia took part in the opening of the second annual Ukrainian Art Festival UKUfest 2026, taking place in Tallinn from 9 to 28 May at the Solaris Centre.

UKUfest is an Estonian-Ukrainian interdisciplinary festival that introduces Estonian audiences to contemporary Ukrainian culture through fashion, music, visual art, cinema, and performance. This year’s central theme is Ukrainian fashion as a symbol of cultural resilience, freedom, and unwavering strength.

As part of the festival, works by leading Ukrainian designers — Svitlana Bevza, Kristina Bobkova, Irina Dzhus, Alina Kachorovska, and Fedor Vozianov — are showcased, alongside a jewelry collection by Tetiana Chorna.

The wife of the Ambassador of Ukraine to Estonia, Mrs. Yuliia Boiechko, opened the festival, emphasizing that today Ukrainian fashion and art have become symbols of Ukraine’s cultural resilience in the face of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

“Art is a way of telling the truth. A way of preserving identity. A way of enduring,” Yuliia Boiechko emphasized.

A special highlight of the festival was “ANTICON” by Ukrainian designer Irina Dzhus — a conceptual performance at the intersection of fashion, art, and performative theatre, exploring themes of identity, home, cultural memory, and survival during wartime.

The presentation of the “Amputations” collection by Ukrainian designer Fedor Vozianov became a fusion of contemporary Ukrainian fashion, art, and the philosophy of freedom of form. The collection showcased the power of minimalism and intellectual design as a language of modern Ukrainian identity.

The collections by Svitlana Bevza, Kristina Bobkova, Alina Kachorovska, along with the jewelry creations of Tetiana Chorna, presented a refined blend of contemporary aesthetics, Ukrainian authenticity, and cultural resilience.

Ambassador of Ukraine to Estonia Volodymyr Boiechko stressed in his speech: “Through music, literature, fashion, painting, theatre, and cinema, we remind the world what Ukraine truly is — not only a country fighting for survival, but a nation that is an inseparable part of the European cultural family. Ukraine belongs to the European cultural space. It has always been so.”

The event was attended by representatives of the diplomatic corps, Estonian ministries, the business community, as well as cultural and artistic circles.