Brisbane's Ukrainian Festival is back this month and it's turning Holland Park West into a proper celebration

Holland Park West is about to smell like varenyky and sound like a folk band warming up, and honestly that is exactly how a Saturday should go.

Brisbane's Ukrainian Festival returns on Saturday 22 August, kicking off from 11am at the Ukrainian Club Brisbane on Galsworthy Street. This year's event marks 35 years of Ukrainian independence, and the Ukrainian Community of Queensland has built a full day of food, music and dancing around that milestone rather than just another market stall lineup.

Expect the food to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Think borscht, varenyky, holubtsi and enough baked goods to make you rethink your meal planning for the week. Live music and traditional dance performances run through the day, and there is a genuine community feel to it that a lot of bigger festivals lose once sponsors get involved.

It is also a properly local affair. The Ukrainian Club has been the community's home base in Holland Park West for years, so this is not a pop up event trying to manufacture atmosphere. Stallholders, performers and organisers are largely the same families who run the place year round, which tends to show up in the food and the welcome.

What makes this one worth putting in the diary is the substance behind it. This is not a generic multicultural showcase, it is a specific community marking a specific anniversary. Thirty five years of independence is a big number to sit with, especially given everything the last few years have thrown at Ukraine, and festivals like this double as a quiet act of solidarity as much as a fun day out.

Brisbane's winter what's on calendar can feel a bit same-same, food trucks here, a market there. This one has actual cultural weight behind the fun, and that combination is rarer than it should be.

Bring cash for the stalls, bring an appetite, and maybe learn to say "smachno" before you go. Holland Park West will do the rest.