Yurii Melnychuk is a teacher-geographer and biologist by education. Yurii was always interested in ethnographic museums, especially the Pyrohovo Museum, National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life near Kyiv.
There, he met scientists – employees of the Museum, who willingly shared their knowledge and experience and influenced his interest and admiration for ethnography. Yurii’s mother did a lot of embroidery, and he was fascinated by this process since childhood. Interest in Ukrainian embroidery in various aspects – technology, ornamentation, symbolism, coloristics – encouraged to reproduce various things with his own hands.
As a result, Yurii demonstrated his works at the National Union of Masters of Folk Art of Ukraine, where in 1993 he was awarded a certificate of a Master of folk art in embroidery.