Pysanka is a symbol of Ukrainian Easter, but not everyone knows that the world's largest pysanka is currently located in the Canadian city of Vegreville. Its author was Pavlo Tsymbalyuk, the son of emigrants from Bukovina, who created this project in 1975 in honor of the centennial of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This event was attended by Queen Elizabeth II, and her photo with the historical pysanka in the background can be found in the archives today.
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The height of the monument in Vegreville is over 20 meters, but the Canadian Easter egg impresses not only with its size, but also with its technological innovations – the 9-meter egg rotates on a rod, indicating the direction of the wind, and the concept and planning of the Easter egg used 9 “innovations” in the fields of mathematics, technology, and architecture of that time.
The Easter egg was placed in Vegreville not by chance – the city is located in the central part of the Canadian province of Alberta, where about 40% of the population has Ukrainian roots. Since 1973, the “Pysanka” festival has been held here annually in early July, representing Ukrainian folk culture. The drawing on the largest Easter egg in the world illustrates five important symbols at once: gold stars at the poles symbolize life and prosperity; triangular stars – the Trinity and devotion to the faith of the ancestors; two silver stripes – a symbol of eternity. Another important fact – in 2019, the Easter egg from Vegreville was reproduced by the Royal Canadian Mint, decorating a Canadian 20-dollar silver coin with it.