Follow These Ukrainian Superstitions for a Lucky Life

Ukrainians really love their superstitions, as do we.

While superstitions and folk beliefs are ancient customs, people still practise them today. It could be because they truly believe bad luck will come if they don’t follow them, or it might just be that it’s something passed down to them so it’s become second nature.

When we were in Ukraine, superstitions became ingrained in us — at first, we probably laughed when we learned a new one, but then we found ourselves cringing when they weren’t followed. Some of them we grew up with, many we learned in Ukraine, and the most memorable ones are those we experienced firsthand.

Whether you actually believe in the outcomes of the superstitions or not, they’re a mindful way to live your everyday life with a sprinkle of Ukrainian culture. Sharing about these superstitions is a way to upkeep Ukrainian culture and celebrate it in a way that’s different than maybe what you're used to.

If you sit at a circle table you can avoid corners of bad luck all together.

Gathering and Entertaining Superstitions

Don’t sit at the corner of the table.

If you sit at the corner of a table, you risk never getting married. Ever.

But, we have also heard that the risk is just not getting married for seven years — let’s go with that one so we can give people some hope.

This also fits into the Love Superstition category, but we’re putting it in this one, since usually it’s when you’re gathering that you get a slap on the wrist for accidentally sitting at the corner of the table and unknowingly risking your entire love life.

You cannot talk about someone’s birthday or give advanced birthday greetings before the actual birthday.

We were fortunate to celebrate many birthdays with friends in Ukraine, and we quickly learned that the birthday is not to be mentioned before the day comes. You can give belated birthday greetings, but don’t you dare mention anything even a minute before midnight.

In Poltava, we knew Pan Poltava (the nickname we lovingly gave to the artistic director of the Poltava Dance Ensemble at the time, Vadim Perepelkin) had a birthday coming up because someone whispered it to us in passing. The day of his birthday, we showed up to rehearsal and found out it would be shortened — we had only a 45-minute ballet class instead of the usual three to four hours of ballet, technique, and choreography.

We went to our changeroom to get ready and came back to the rehearsal hall a short while later to experience it being transformed into a banquet hall. The ensemble dancers marched in with some unhinged doors and laid them across some theatre chairs to create a long table. They were parading in with full trays of food to fill the door-table with. We had no idea that this would be happening.

It ended up being the most wonderful celebration filled with birthday toasts, dancing, and singing accompanied by the accordionist. It was such a beautiful event to experience with those people.

Hannah bringing on bad luck by celebrating her birthday early AND hanging out at the corner of a table in. Oops!

Hannah may have brought some bad luck upon herself when we lived in Lutsk because we celebrated her birthday a day before her real birthday. It was for a good reason though! We had some friends in town visiting us, and Virsky had a concert that we attended that evening, so it made sense to go out to a pub afterwards. It was such a memorable evening filled with birthday toasts, Ukrainian karaoke, a “Mnohaya Lita” serenade from Volyn Choir members, gifts from Virsky dancers, and so much love. We kept questioning how we can feel so much love from people we knew for less than a month. It remains Hannah’s best birthday to date. We’re not sure what bad luck it did, or will bring, but it was worth it.

This next one isn’t really a superstition but more of a custom in Ukraine, and since we’re on the birthday topic, we’ll share it here.

If it’s your birthday, you’re expected to pay for the drinks, food, and party for your guests.

Another fun birthday story is from when we lived in Chernivtsi. The first day of rehearsals we were told we would be performing a dance with them the following week — got it. The next thing the ensemble dancers told us was to meet them at a specific location at a certain time, and they’d take us somewhere, but they didn’t tell us why or what for. Over the next couple days, we heard some whispers that Vasya (an ensemble dancer) was having a birthday and figured the super-secret plans were for him.

We knew Vasya for a total of three days before showing up to his gala-hall birthday party. We were there with his closest friends and family, seated right next to Vasya’s brother-in-law. Everything at the party was lavish and top-of-the-line — food, drinks, music, and, once again, karaoke.

The transportation to the venue was also top-of-the-line. We met at the point we were told, and more and more people kept showing up. We were wondering what kind of vehicle was taking us to this party, imagining some bus or something — there ended up being about 14 people piled on top of eachother in a small van. We got acquainted with the Bukovyna Ensemble very quickly.

If a piece of cutlery falls on the ground, you can expect company.

A common variation of this superstition is if a knife falls, it means a man is coming, and if a spoon falls, it means a woman will be coming. Hannah was recently at a wedding, and her elbow made a knife fly off the table. No unexpected men have come into her life yet.

If a woman eats the end piece of the loaf, her partner will go bald. If a man eats the end piece of the loaf, he will have good luck or become rich. We’ve also heard that if you eat the end of the loaf, you will be kissed.

Every European gathering or meal has bread of some sort so this superstition is important to note. (And feel free to make up your own variation, depending on who you want to eat the bread ends.)

As you can see, all these superstitions are why Kaitlin is tossing knives off the table in hopes of a man, and Hannah is saving all the bread ends for Kaitlin (in hopes of kisses or a nice bald man).

Drinking Superstitions

There are three common toasts that are made when drinking. The first is to gathering, the second is to friendship, and the third is to love.

The first toast for gathering can be made to celebrate any reason for gathering — gathering for a birthday celebration, gathering for a wedding, gathering for recording a podcast, any reason for gathering.

The second toast is for friendship — to old friends, new friends, friends you want to have, any kind of friends.

The third toast is to love — love of Ukraine, love of Ukrainian culture, love of friends, romantic love. Typically, if the toast is to romantic love, the men will stand, and the ladies stay seated.

After these three standard toasts, the rest of the toasts can take their own directions.

Here are a few more general rules to keep the good luck flowing:

Notice the hand under the glass? No souls were stolen by evil spirits that day.

There shouldn’t be much time between your first and second toasts or drinks, because you don’t want a fly to get into your drink.
If you’re sipping a drink during these first three toasts, you must finish your drink on the third toast.
You have to end on an odd number of toasts. Ending on an even number is simply bad luck.
You must look a person in the eyes when you clink glasses with them. Eye contact is everything.
You must cover the bottom of your glass when a drink is being poured into it, or you risk an evil spirit coming from under your glass to steal your soul.
When you clink glasses, you cannot cross arms with anyone else. Do not reach across someone’s stretched arm to clink with someone across from you.
The person who begins pouring the drinks must continue pouring the drinks throughout the gathering.

Home Superstitions

Do not whistle indoors.

There are so many variations on this one. Some say it can scare off good fortune and wealth, others say you’ll call on evil spirits or wake the devil, and some say it only applies when there are religious icons in the home.

Never do business over the threshold. Don’t hand things over the threshold. Don’t greet someone over the threshold.

Imagine the door frame of your home — this is the threshold between your home and the outside world. It’s believed that the home spirit, the Domovyk, lives under this threshold, and doing anything over this area invades their space and brings bad luck. Welcoming someone to your house? Hug them inside. Passing along a gift? Make sure both people are inside or outside the home. Make sense? Perfect, that’s already good luck.

Enter and exit through the same door of the home.

Imagine there are threads behind you as you enter a home. You walk all around the home and then exit through a different door than you entered — your threads are all tangled up. Exit through the same door you entered and no energy gets tangled.

(We don’t know if that’s actually the origin story of this superstition — this is just our version to make sense of it, and it seems to fit!)

Before you leave your home for a period of time, you should take a moment to spend time with the home spirits.

The chair and cozy corner Kaitlin had a moment in to thank her Poltava apartment before she departed.

It’s believed there are good spirits that live in your home, and when you are leaving for an extended period of time, you should take a moment to sit with them and acknowledge your time in that space. If you don’t, it’s believed that the home spirits will be uneasy and constantly pulling you back to the home, potentially making your trip or next life journey unsuccessful.

When we lived in Ukraine, every time we moved to a new city, our Ukraine Dad Kyrylo made sure we sat on our couch and reflected on our time there and thanked our space for what it provided us. It was a nice moment that gave closure to us and the home spirits before moving into our next home.

If you forget something in your home, don’t go back for it.

If you absolutely have to go back then you should look in a mirror or exit the home walking backwards to cancel the bad luck. It’s always helpful when a superstition gives a way to cancel the bad luck you may have brought upon yourself.

Don’t take your garbage out after sunset.

Your garbage will still be there in the morning, so just relax and hold on to the good luck you have going for you. The garbage can wait.

Dancer Superstitions (Kind Of)

You shouldn’t throw your hair away in the garbage.

Any hair that falls out should be flushed down the toilet or burned, or you might get a headache. It’s also believed that you might get a headache if your hair ends up in a bird’s nest. Burning it is the safest way to avoid headaches.

So dancers, if you think your vinok is giving you a headache, it’s probably actually because your hair ended up in a bird’s nest.

Wearing a safety pin wards off evil spirits and brings good energy.

Ukrainian dancers are bringing in so much good luck with all the pins we use to secure our costume pieces!

If you step on someone’s foot, you’ll be on bad terms with that person or will have an upcoming conflict with them.

This is important for dancers to be aware of with all of the fancy footwork with partners we do. Luckily, the consequences can be cancelled out if the person steps on your foot back.

We would see this play out while walking down streets in Ukraine. A person would accidentally step on the back of another person’s heel, and then we would see them turn around and give a quick tap with their foot on the other person’s foot to cancel out that bad energy.

You’ll have a bad performance if the hem or edge of your costume or shoes is cuffed.

One of the girls in the Volyn Ensemble told us that it’s bad luck if the hem of your boot or skirt is cuffed or flipped under. This superstition may be specific to the dancers in this ensemble, but now that it has been told to us, we have to follow it. And now that we told it to you, you have to follow it too.

Love Superstitions

A person should never gift their partner a watch.

It’s believed that gifting someone a watch counts down the time to the end of their relationship. Some say this doesn’t apply to married couples.

You should never gift a set of knives.

It’s believed that the knives will sever the relationship between the gift giver and the gift receiver. If you do receive knives as a gift, the bad luck can be cancelled by giving a small payment to the person who gifted them.

A tattoo rub with a text is just what we need sometimes.

When giving someone a bouquet, make sure there are an odd number of flowers.

Even numbers of flowers should be saved for funerals. Odd numbers in general seem to be favoured in Ukrainian customs (…or at least in two superstitions — odd number of toasts, odd number of flowers. Any others?).

Rubbing Our Tattoos

Four of us who lived in Ukraine together got matching tattoos when we were in Poltava. When one of us is having a rough day or just needs a bit of extra energy for whatever reason, it’s become a superstition among us to rub our tattoos. We believe we get that extra boost we need to keep on going. It makes us feel connected and supported by one another. The rub is often followed up with a text saying, “I just rubbed my tattoo. Can you feel it?” And after that text is sent, we can all feel it.

“If you rub this statue’s hair bun, you will have luscious hair for the rest of your life.” — an original superstition by Hannah

A Cautionary Tale: The Time Hannah Believed a Superstition that Wasn’t Actually a Superstition

We had made some friends while living in Lviv, and while hanging out with them, they mentioned they wanted to meet up with a friend to wish him a happy birthday right at midnight and asked if we wanted to join them. We agreed.

On the way to the birthday boy’s place, we (Hannah and non-Vsi Kaitlyn) stopped at a corner convenience store to buy some party snacks like cheese, kovbassa, drinks, and a smoked, dried fish called taranka. Our new friends told Hannah that it’s a Ukrainian custom and good luck to wake someone up on their birthday by hitting them with a fish. It sounded perfectly reasonable to Hannah since learning so many other quirky Ukrainian superstitions. Plus, it sounded like the birthday bumps tradition, but instead of bumps, it was fish slaps.

We arrived at the birthday boy’s place where he was fast asleep, and Hannah went in with the smoked fish to give the birthday boy his good luck birthday slaps. The birthday boy awoke to a complete stranger slapping him with a fish while his friends hid around the corner giggling. He was scared and confused, but Hannah kept hitting him because she wanted to ensure he started his next year off with so much luck from those fish slaps.

Not long after, our friends shared that this was all a joke and wasn’t a real Ukrainian custom. So be careful who you trust when learning new superstitions. Even though the fish slapping turned out to be a fake folk belief, the memories from that night still make us smile. Maybe that’s what some of these superstitions and customs are all about — making good memories.

A special thanks to the Vegreville Pysanka Festival for inviting us to emcee their grandstand shows this past summer where we were inspired to share many of these superstitions with the audience!

Listen to us tell stories that go along with each of these superstitions on the podcast version of this blog post at this link.

Stay lucky!

Schaslyvo!