Bulgarian Festivals
The Mummers Tradition (Koukeri) originated from the Dionysian festivities of the ancient Thracians and the ritual was associated with abundance in the broadest sense - from a barn full of wheat to a house full of children. The last major winter holiday observed by the Bulgarian peasants was THE FIRST SUNDAY BEFORE LENT (seven weeks before Easter).
The most important custom of this week is the Mummers’ performance. It marks the beginning of the spring calendar. Everybody makes their own mask competing to show the best personal skill and craftsmanship. The koukeri’s masks and garments are colourful, covered with beads, ribbons, and woollen tassels. They are sometimes made of hides.
The ritual has the characteristics of a theatrical performance, of a carnival. An important element is the symbolic ploughing and sowing - a token of a rich harvest. The heavy swaying movements of the leading mummer is meant to represent wheat heavy with grain, while the bells tied around the mummers’ waists are intended to drive away evil forces and illness.
Trifon Zarezan (Vinegrower’s Day) is celebrated in the first half of February. It is an old occupationrelated custom. On this day, observed throughout the country, the vines are pruned and sprinkled with wine. Ritual songs and dances are performed around an abundant spread, involving also many wishes for a plentiful harvest. In some areas, a Vine King is chosen and he is crowned with a wreath of vine twigs. Everybody treats him with great respect, for it is believed that fertility would depend on the King’s well-being.
The Martenitsa is a unique Bulgarian custom. It originates from the ancient Thracians. The earliest martenitsas were made of white and red woollen threads to which a silver or gold coin was occasionally tied. Other rituals observed on March 1 include women’s dressing all over in red, in some regions, and in North-eastern Bulgaria the lady of the house used to toss a red cloth over a fruit tree or spread red wool onto a field to secure fertility. In stock-breeding areas, a white-and-red thread was commonly tied to the livestock. The tradition is still alive and widely respected: every year on March 1 Bulgarians present each other with martenitsas.
Easter is a mobile annual festival; the date of its observance is calculated on the lunar calendar. In the year 2001 Orthodox Easter was on 15 April, whereas, in 2005 it was on May 1. Easter is the most revered festival in the Church calendar of Orthodox Christians. It is celebrated in the course of three days. Typical of this holiday is the dyeing of eggs. Eggs are dyed on Thursday or Saturday of the Holy Week. The eldest woman in the house has the privilege of dyeing the eggs. On Maundy Thursday loaves of bread are also made - both ritual and regular, as well as Easter cakes /kozunatzi/.The different kinds of ritual bread are called Lord’s bread /“bogovitza”/, Easter ring-shaped buns /kravai/, or Easter rolls /kolatzi/.
Lazarouvane - the great festival of youth. This is an old custom, typical of all regions. It is of Slav origin and its symbolic meaning is associated with fertility, as well as with love and marriage. Particular attention was paid to the dress: festive and beautiful, with superb heavy ornaments. The lazarouvane consists of a string of ritual games and songs trained in advance by the young girls (lazarki) during the long days of Lent. The ritual’s varieties are many, their differences lying in the celebration of Saint Lazarus’ Day itself (eight days before Easter). The common tradition, however, is the coming out of marriageable girls. Getting married and setting up a home has always been an essential part of Bulgarian mentality and way of life.
Saint George’s Day is among the most important folk festivals. It is observed on May 6 and has a strongly occupational content, marking the beginning of trading activity and stock-breeding for the year. Its expressive rituality has been preserved to date. On the night before St. George’s Day, young boys would pick blossoming willow twigs to decorate the house, the pens, and the livestock for health. During the night, the sheep were turned out to grass because that night’s dew was believed to have a curative power. During the day, the table was laid with ritual bread and dishes, merry songs were sung, accompanied with the traditional wishes for joy and abundance.
The traditional Bulgarian cuisine
Gourmets have long since esteemed the merits of Bulgarian cuisine with the verdict that it is tasty, spicy and varied, appealing to one and all. Indeed, who would not like the abundance of fresh vegetables and fruits, juicy meat, grilled or served with piquant sauces, mouth-watering vegetarian dishes, simmered slowly on low heat, the banitsa ( cheese pie) which simply melts in your mouth, and famous Bulgarian yogurt?
The Bulgarian culinary geography abounds in delicious specialties and exotic dishes: Bansko-style kapama (meat and vegetables stewed in an earthenware dish), Rhodope cheverme ( lamb roasted on a spit over an open fire), Thracian katmi ( a special type of pancake) and Dobroudjanska banitsa, Danube fish soup and Sozopol-style mussels.
The cosy, typically Bulgarian folk-style restaurants will tempt you with Shopska salad and chilled grape brandy, stuffed vine leaves or peppers, kavarma the Miller’s Way, monastery-style hotchpotch, moussaka and kebab. The smell of oven-fresh bread rolls is mixed with the fragrance of savoury. Thinly sliced loukanka (flat dry sausage) from Smyadovo, pastarma, feta and yellow cheese are temptingly arranged on ceramic plates. The delicate white wines Dimyat, Misket and Riesling are followed by full reds such as Merlot, Cabernet and Gamza. Cups of steaming coffee are served with sweet jam, pancakes with honey and walnuts or baklava.
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The Euxinograd Palace
Just north of Varna is the Euxinograd Palace which was built as a royal summer residence in 1882. The palace and its wonderfully kept formal gardens resemble a French chateau. It is set in beautiful wooded parkland which reaches down to the fine sandy beach. On the edge of the estate the famous and delicious Euxinograd wine, cognac and rakiya are bottled. The chief attraction of the place is the wonderful Botanical Garden. Its ten hectares surround the small summer palace of the Romanian Queen Marie. (The area was part of Romania between 1913 and 1940).
The attractive villa has the unusual addition of a minaret, said to have been built for the Queen’s Turkish lover. The gardens are set on a steep hillside, and descend in six terraces to the sea - supposedly one for each of the Queen’s children. There are over three thousand varieties of shrubs, roses and flowers, set among streams, waterfalls, and ornamental channels. There is a rock garden, a formal French one with clipped box cones and geometric beds, and an astonishing collection of cacti. Interspersed are stone thrones, seats, pillars and ornaments collected by the Queen.
The Stone Forest
About 20 km west of Varna is the socalled Stone Forest, a curious collection of stone columns up to 7 metres high. The first impression is of a ruined temple but scientists have discovered that it is a geological formation of stalagmites some fifty million years old. North of Balchik the coast is virtually untouched by tourism, the road passes through Kavarna, a port from where much of Dobrudja’s grain is exported.
A minor road leads to Cape Kaliakra, with its prominent red cliffs rising 60 metres above the sea. According to local tradition forty girls, the sole survivors of a Turkish attack, tied their long plaits of hair together and jumped to their deaths, rather than be raped by the victors. Today it is a peaceful nature reserve, where hooded cormorants nest, seals and dolphins cavort in the sea, and pink starlings and rock blackbirds frequent the cliffs and caves.
Kamchiya
South of Varna a minor road leads to Kamchiya, where the river of the same name widens into a big lagoon before flowing into the sea. A small picturesque resort spreads along the wooded river banks. The nearby 500 hectares of nature reserve, Longoza, is an area of marsh and forest with dense almost tropical undergrowth. Ancient trees with a variety of climbers interwoven amongst them form a canopy. This is a typical deltaic formation, which, in spring, is regularly flooded, inundating a huge area. Here there are pelicans, kingfishers and water birds of all kinds.
Etura - Architectural and Ethnographic Complex
Eight km from the centre of Gabrovo, master craftsmen fashion beautiful gold, silver, copper, leather and wooden articles right before your eyes from early morning until late at the night. The waft of freshly baked bread drifts across from an old bakery and a tiny coffee shop serves steaming sweet Turkish coffee cooked in a copper pot. Pastry cooks offer delicious home-made cookies and cakes. And around this are lovely old houses, flowers on the window sills, small shops with wooden shutters and gas lanterns on the street corners.
The Bulgarian monasteries
Warm and living rather than divine beauty behind their austere stone facades, still amaze with their magnificent architecture, unfading frescoes and murals, exquisite icons and wood-carvings, made by self-taught architects, builders and painters.
The Rose Valley
In Bulgaria there is a valley, tucked away between the Balkan Range and the Sredna Gora Mountains, where hundreds of thousands of roses are in bloom in May and June. If you should visit it at this time of the year, you will be able to attend a beautiful festival in the Bulgarians’ working calendar - the rose-picking season. The Bulgarian attar of roses is used as an important component in the perfumery business throughout the world. Kazanluk boasts the Balkan’s only Scientific Research Institute of the rose where over 1500 types of roses from all parts of the world have been gathered.
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