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The smell of crepes and the sound of music filled Liberty Hall on Sunday as KU’s Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREES) held its annual Spring Festival.
The event is held each year around the time of Maslenitsa, a Slavic festival that celebrates the arrival of spring.
The event featured live music performances from the Mavka Ukrainian Dance Group, an Olathe-based Ukrainian dance group, as well as Gerald Trimble and Jambaroque, a six-piece ensemble that plays traditional music from Turkey, Armenia and the Caucasus.
East European crepes that symbolize the sun, called bliny, were served to attendees as a sign of celebration.
“I just think it’s one big ball of inspiration with pancakes,” said Megan Luttrell, the outreach coordinator for CREES.
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Luttrell said she wants the event to give Eastern Europeans and Eurasians a sense of belonging in the Lawrence community and inspire people to learn more about the different Eastern European arts and cultures.
“One thing that I think is really important about this festival is showcasing these cultures, putting them in front of people firsthand, celebrating them, and then getting resources in people’s hands so they can learn more about it,” Luttrell said.
Ukrainian Mavka dancers and high school students Polina Lyashenko and Bella Lylo, both originally from Ukraine, said the festival allows them to reconnect with their heritage.
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“I haven’t been in Ukraine in eight years, and I feel like I’m getting a part of my culture back through dressing up in costumes and dancing traditionally Ukrainian dances,” Lyashenko said.
“I feel like Mavka is changing that perspective onto Eastern Europeans — that we’re all not part of the Soviet Union, that we’re not all Russians, that we’re all different groups of people and we have our own cultures,” Lylo added.
Luttrell also said the event is meant to lift up Ukrainian arts and culture at a time when Russia is trying to suppress them.
There was a crafts corner where attendees could create Polish papercut art, called wycinanki, or make Bulgarian martenitsa ornament dolls to wear around their wrists. To add on, attendees could take photos with Eastern European and Eurasian themed props in a photobooth. Next to the props were corresponding information sheets, explaining what the prop is and which culture it’s from.
This included props of Alkonost, a figure in Slavic folklore with the head of a woman and the body of a bird with a magical voice which can make listeners forget everything, and Baba Yaga, a dangerous witch and maternal benefactress that’s a house with chicken legs from East Slavic folklore.
CREES has digital culture tours to teach attendees about many of the traditions, cultural symbols and crafts present at the event for free online.
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Logan Pierson (he/him), reporting intern with The Lawrence Times since December 2025, is a senior journalism and photography student at the University of Kansas. He previously contributed to the University Daily Kansan as a senior reporter and beat reporter.
Read his work for the Times here.
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