Hello all!
As I mentioned last week we went on an exciting 4-days adventure to Todorovo village. Unfortunately, Maria couldn’t join us because she was on sick leave last week so we would hear from her this week or next week when she returns from the LAND trip we sent her on to Denmark. Although, we were sending her photos and videos during the whole trip so she was part of the adventure as well.
We chose to go to Todorovo because we wanted to see how our NGO’s solidarity project was going there. Todorovo is a small village close to Pleven, where the people are lucky to have an amazing cultural center (“chitalishte” in bulgarian) which they called “Future” (“Badeshte”). The cultural center is almost 100 years old. It was created in 1927 when the village was with its’ old name “Ochin dol”.
The cultural center organizes different kind of events and traditional bulgarian rituals- such as Carnival against the evil spirits called “Kukeri” and “Koledari” which is a slavic tradition where all the boys in the village go around the houses singing – the Balcan version of Christmas caroling. The children in the center compete in a lot of folk dance competitions as well and they have won a lot of medals and prizes. The center has a big library where children borrow books in the summer, and older people borrow books in the winter when they can not work in their gardens.
I was so delighted to see that they have a big concert hall which they renovated with the support from our NGO’s European solidarity project. They have a projector so it can be used as cinema as well. The people from the village do presentations there and once the children had fun doing a sleepover while watching an animated movie. They use it for all the folk dance rehearsals as well.
The ritual that we experienced in 27th of May was called “Lazarki”- a christian bulgarian tradition of young girls going to all the houses in the village dressed colorfully in traditional bulgarian costumes. The girls sing in front of each house for the national celebration of Saint Lazar (in bulgarian “Lazarovden”). Usually they should be above 16 years old but nowadays we can see younger girls as well.
We were lucky to see the “Lazarki” and to walk with them to a few houses where we observe how they sang traditional bulgarian songs and a spring ritual where they wished to the home and its’ owners- abundance and health.
The lazarki were arranged in a semicircle. They take out a leaf from the kettle and each calls, dropping the leaf on the ground:
“As the petals fly, so playful to be the children and the animals!”
“As the petals sing, so shall the chicks fly! ”
“May wheat be born”
“From two grapes – a cask of wine to overflow!”
“May the animals multiply! May the pens be full!”
“May the bees swarm! Lots of honey and sweetness! ”
“May the barns be full! ”
“May the purses be full!”
“May the year be healthy, full and happy! May the children be healthy and harder than flint!”
We met a woman from the village who told us that when she was a child she was doing the same spring ritual but the only difference was that the group of girls was not as big as this one. They were walking in small family groups while here were all the girls from the village from different families.
Since I grew up in a city I didn’t have the chance to observe these kind of traditions so I was so happy to hear stories from the local people about their memories and the symbolism behind it. Next week I will tell you about the fun permaculture workshop that we did for the children in Todorovo.
See you soon,
Polin
