The Ladovytsi youth group was founded in 1992 at the folklore department of the Khmelnytskyi Children’s School of Arts. The group’s permanent leader and spiritual mentor is the talented folklorist Iryna Teliukh. The band’s repertoire is based on folk music and rituals of Naddnistrian Podillia, a special region with traces of historical settlements of different times, where a special autochthonous tradition of ritual singing has been preserved. The group members are actively engaged in expeditionary and ethnographic activities, recording song repertoire and learning from folk performers the peculiarities of local dialects, singing, dancing, and rituals. More than 80 villages have been explored, and many unique samples of everyday life have been collected.

“The Ladovytsi are regular participants in national and international festivals and winners of the Chervona Ruta song contest. The result of the collective’s many years of work is 2 audio albums (“Bakota”, “And the Mother of God walked the world…”), a documentary video “Ladovytsi – Soul and Myth” (directed by T. Andriychuk, Khmelnytskyi, 2002), and participation in the 2001 documentary “Choruses of Ukraine” (D. Bohdanov, K. Delville).

At various times, Iryna Teliukh organized the ethnic Polish group Podolyany, and the children’s ensemble Ladosvity, which today exists on the basis of the Khmelnytskyi School of Arts Zarichchia. During the creative years of their work, the group initiated festivals in Khmelnytskyi: 
– “Folklore Performed by Youth” together with the Association of Young Folklore Researchers (2005, 2006, 2007, 2009);
– International Folklore Festival “Ladovytsi” with the participation of groups from Poland and Georgia (2016);
– All-Ukrainian Winter Festival “Rejoice, O God, Enlighten, O Earth, the Son of God is born” (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019).

In addition, a series of television programs about the traditions of Podillia, “Folk Crafts,” was launched in cooperation with the Podillia Center State Broadcasting Company in 2017-2019.

In 2014, the NGO “Revival of Podillia Traditions” was registered, and its members include researchers, craftsmen, and representatives of various fields to study our region more broadly, to record and document the invaluable spiritual heritage of the Naddnistrian region.

The members of all ages who have joined the group over the years are now located in all parts of the country and the world, but what unites them all, wherever we are, is their love for authentic traditional culture. The Ladovytsi band has brought up many generations who represent their people and culture with dignity in their country and around the world.

We continue to explore, recreate, love, be proud of, and appreciate our heritage in order to confidently manage our land, because we are Ukrainians!