KURENIVKA
Ten years spellbound. One last burn.
The story of the first Ukrainian camp at Burning Man, told year by year, from the first fire to the final one.
A kurin was a Cossack encampment, a home you carried with you. Kurenivka is a neighborhood in Kyiv.
In 2017, eighty Ukrainians carried that name into the Black Rock Desert. Ten years later we are telling the whole story, from the first fire to the last one. This is what happened next.
2017
The First Fire
Eighty Ukrainians, most of them first-timers, built the first official Ukrainian camp at Burning Man and brought a fire sculpture and a ritual of their own.
80
campers, most on the playa for the first time
2018
Second Landing
We came back with two art projects: AI.TLants, where machine learning met art, and Sorry by Oleksiy Sai, the first project in his series.
Read the chapter →2019
Home in Kyiv
No camp in the desert. Instead we opened a home: the Kurenivka Palace of Culture, 1,200 m² in Kyiv, alive from May until the pandemic. Precompression, a stage at Atlas Weekend, Decompression.
1,300+
guests at the housewarming
2020
The Multiverse
The desert closed. We burned the effigy anyway, on the banks of the Dnipro at Kyiv River Rave in Vyshhorod.
Read the chapter →2021
Renegade
No tickets, no organizers, just the principles. Renegade Burn Ukraine in one of the most beautiful places we could find.
Read the chapter →
2022
The Pause We Didn’t Choose
In 2022 we didn’t go to the desert. Our people were somewhere else: defending, volunteering, starting over. Kurenivka kept going in a different form.
From February 24, the Ukrainian Refugee Support Initiative connected Burners worldwide with people who had to leave home. In August, Kurenivka Kids Camp in Kolochava, in the Carpathians: a free creative camp for children affected by war.
70
kids aged 4–16 at Kurenivka Kids Camp
2023
The Hedgehog Temple
Back in the desert after the war years. A temple built from anti-tank hedgehogs, the symbol of Ukrainian defense, and a memorial to the Ukrainians who will never make it to Burning Man because the war took them.
Read the chapter →
2024
How Much Is Life?
One question, asked in the middle of the desert. The piece looked back to the Kurenivka mudslide of 1961 in Kyiv and asked what a life is worth.
80
campers in Black Rock City
2025
Blue Bull
Maria Prymachenko’s bull became a two-story art car and rolled across the playa, a moving stage for the whole camp. Three more art projects came with Kurenivka that year: Merman, Point of Unity and Lightning Tower.
20+
performances, Benny Benassi among them
2026
Axis of Us
A smaller camp built around the Bull. Light, warm and close: people who knew each other before they met on the playa.
55
people around Blue Bull
10
years, 2017–2027
7
camps in Black Rock City, 2027 included
500+
people who called Kurenivka home
7
art projects on the playa
70
kids at Kurenivka Kids Camp
Kurenivka: Ten Years Spellbound
A feature documentary about Blue Bull and ten years of Kurenivka, filmed on the playa at Burning Man 2025: how a painting by Maria Prymachenko became a two-story art car, and the people who carried it there.
Now in the edit · Premiere to be announced
2027
The Last Spell
For ten years the desert held us under its spell. In 2027, the year Black Rock City calls Spellbound, we cast ours one last time: a final camp of 70 people around Blue Bull, on its last ride across the playa.
70
campers
7th
time the camp stands on the playa
10th
anniversary since Kurenivka was founded
The art car
Blue Bull on its last ride across the playa.
The lounge
Our shaded home on the playa, open to everyone who walks in.
The art
One more piece for the last burn. We will show it closer to the date.
Everyone who was Kurenivka
The final camp
70 places, for campers and the Build Crew. Send a short video introducing yourself.
Apply for 2027 →Fuel the last ride
Help bring Ukrainian culture to the world on the playa. Donations go to Ukrainian Burners Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and fund the final camp and Blue Bull.
Donate →Build it with us
Partners, sponsors, artists, musicians and press: write directly to Yaro Korets, the founder of Kurenivka.
Telegram · @yarokey → Instagram · @yarokorets → Email →