TRADITIONS
Cuisine
Bulgarian cuisine has grown out of wealth of culinary traditions, both local and foreign, combined in a way which is uniquely Bulgarian, offering cuisine with its own characteristics, originality and exceptional variety. Many of the Bulgarian products and dishes are known in various parts of the world. Bulgarian dishes and drinks have their devotees even among the most refined gastronomes and tasters. Bulgarian yoghourt is an industry, and the Great Roasted Red Pepper - an attraction. Anyone who has tasted a Bulgarian apple, already knows why Eve was tempted by this fruit.
Customs
The masquerade games and customs in Bulgaria have ancient origin and could be observed as inherent to the ancient heathendom. With their strange clothes made of fur, cut shirts or women's clothes, sewed up of bands, mixture of national costumes and animal masks and horrifying faces, with continuous ringing of different in size and sound bells, these masquerade games and customs with their lively dancing ritual steps reflect the eternal fight between Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. On the first Sunday before Lent, masked koukery perform ritualistic processional dances to ward off evil spirits and ensure fertility at the onset of growing season.
On the first of March we celebrate the begguining of the spring. The day is called Baba Marta(or Grandma Marta in English). On that day you give a special present called "martenitza" to all the people you love. "Martenitza" are small two coloured and made of thread - white and red. Usually they (the martenitzas) look like a girl and a boy together. When someone gives you a martenitza you should hold it wheather on your neck or pinned on your shirt until you see a stork. After that you can hang it on a blown tree for fertility.
May 21 - Saints Constantine and Elena Day - Nestinarstvo, or fire dancing; practitioners walk barefoot on hot coals in small rural villages in the Strandzha mountains (or increasingly in tourist resorts) in this pagan event marking the arrival of summer. It is believed the ritual is descended from Dionysian rites practiced by ancient Thracians. The mistress of the house got up long before sunrise to bake a fresh round loaf, decorated on top with different symbolical images and magic signs designed to ensure rich crops. She would also cook a chicken stuffed with rice, and fill up a buklitsa (a wooden wine bottle) with wine.
National Costumes
The national costumes are very specific cultural phenomena which evolve during long historical development. They have long been a determinant of Bulgarian folk culture which gives visual idea of the ethnic specificity and ethnographic variety of the Bulgarian people. The traditional costumes are exclusively home made product, born out of the women's taste and creativity. Men's participation in this process was insignificant. The traditional materials for clothing textiles were: flax, hemp, wool, silk and cotton. Leather had comparatively small application, used for typical Bulgarian footwear caller tsurvouli (a kind of sandals), and furs were used for kalpatsi (men's fur caps). The composition of the Bulgarian national costumes is a complex one. It depended on the specific labor conditions and way of living.
Music Folklore
Bulgarian poetic folk art originates in ancient times and has centuries-old history. First preserved records for the existence of folk singers and songs derive from the IX-X century. Most of the folk songs date back from the XVII century. Folk songs are an expression of the Bulgarian way of life trough the ages, resulting from the historical and social fate of the country, from its experience and popular customs. Bulgarians enlive in the folk songs with their best qualities - diligence, honesty, steadyness, loyalty, wit and love of freedom. The songs grow up from the inner needs of the creators to give expression of their thoughts and experience. They are sung on sad and joyful days - in the fields, in the meadows, on working-bees, playing the Bulgarian ring dance, called HORO, in the gathering places of the rebels - called HAIDOUTI. Their creators are the folk singers - people with poetical and musical talent. The songs as well as the fairy tales, riddles, proverbs and sayings are a product of joint creative work. As the folk songs were spread by word of mouth they changed and had many versions. Since the books were not easy accessible to the working people, the folklore and the songs were the source of their experience, wisdom and knowledge. According to their subject the Bulgarian folk songs are ritual songs, labour songs, customs songs, historical, heroic and songs about the Haidouti.
Bulgarian Wines
The Thracian tribes worshipped the god Dyonissios as the patron of wine. With the establishment of the Bulgarian state in 681 AD the Bulgarians inherited the experience and the traditions of the local population in the cultivation of grapes and wine-producing. The winery that was found in the region of Preslav dating back from the VII – X century AD is a testimony of that. Today, grape growing and wine production play an important role in Bulgarian economy. The wine industry contributes to the steady development of rural regions and infertile areas, maintains the ecological balance, and encourages the appropriate and efficient use of the country's resources. There are numerous types of grapes and wines. The great number of sunny days in the southern parts of the country favours the red wine species, while in the North – the white wine ones.
