When people first think of the Carpathian mountains, usually Romania and Dracula come to their mind. However, the Carpathians also stretch to Ukraine – and that’s where AEGEE-Kyiv took the participants of their New Year’s event “AC/TC – AEGEE Comes To Carpathians”, which started on the 27th of December 2017 and ended on the 4th of January 2018. The participants and organisers had a cosy time in a mountain valley with a breathtaking view – and also learnt a lot about rural life in Western Ukraine. Of course, also other activities such as skiing, a sauna party and horseback riding were great highlights, as Alya Vykhodtseva, main coordinator of the New Year’s event of AEGEE-Kyiv, told the Golden Times.

Alya Vykhodtseva
Alya Vykhodtseva

Golden Times: How many participants did you have?
Alya Vykhodtseva: We had 13 participants from 9 countries, and what’s the best about it – these were not only European countries, but even India and USA! There were also 13 organisers, so together we had quite a large company.

GT: Did your New Year’s event have a theme?
Alya: Yes, we wanted to show our guests the best of Ukrainian culture, especially everything related to New Year and Christmas celebration. That’s actually why a large part of the New Year’s event took place in the Carpathians – we decided to display the most interesting things of rural life; small villages and places you won’t see in big Ukrainian cities.

New Year in the Carpathians

GT: How was your new year’s party?
Alya: Quite relaxed, like the event in general. When we were only thinking about organising it, our team decided to make New Year’s eve chilly, calm, relaxed and cosy. It also has something to do with the name AC/TC: the event had to be nice and warm, just as old music everybody loves, but also with quite a bit of rock’n’roll! The Carpathian part, which included the New Year celebration, was the most relaxed part of the event. The celebration itself was also family-like, in a wooden house in the mountains, with homemade food, games and playing the guitar.

GT: What were the other programme highlights?
Alya: Those highlights would be the sauna party we had in the Carpathians with jumping in the freezing river after the sauna, skiing in the biggest ski resort of Ukraine and horse-riding.

GT: What were the funniest or most exciting moments?
Alya: There were quite some of them, but the one I would think about first is the European Night. We were partying long, until five in the morning. At four a.m. one of our Italian participants cooked pasta for everyone who stayed awake – by the way, the best pasta I have ever tried! That was something really amazing and it felt like some real family night. Also I remember how our participants were amazed in the first morning in the Carpathians. We arrived there in the evening so when we woke up next morning it turned out we are in a beautiful valley with a breathtaking view. Of course, everyone was impressed.

GT: How was the group of participants?
Alya: Totally amazing. We had a great group with a nice gender and national balance and every participant added something amazing to the spirit of the event. I’d even dare to say it was the best group of participants I’ve ever seen on events!

GT: Anything you would like to add?
Alya: Our whole team is thankful to everyone who participated in it – guys, you are the best! Also as the main coordinator I want to thank all the organizers who did a great job together. More cool events from AEGEE-Kyiv are coming, so I would want to meet everyone who was with us again and again!

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