The culture of Bulgaria - Week 5 - Anou Christiaens

Hello everyone!

I’m back to tell you something exciting about our trip around the world! After visiting Hungary, which you can read all about in my girlfriend’s blogs, we moved on to Bulgaria. Today I’m going to tell you something more about the culture of the country. If you want to know something more about the politics or the economy, I advise you to read Anneleen’s and Romina’s blogs!

We went to visit the capital of Bulgaria. It’s a city with a very beautiful name in my opinion, Sofia. I think it sounds a bit mysterious. When we were walking down the streets, we noticed that all the people were wearing a kind of puppet made of red and white yarn. I wanted to know more about it and learned that the puppet is called Martenitsa. The people Bulgaria wear it from March 1 until around the end of March because they see the month of March as the beginning of springtime. They want to welcome the upcoming spring by wearing a Martenitsa.

The next day, we were invited by a local woman to come with her and attend an ancient Bulgarian ritual. It was called Kukeri. At first, we didn’t know what was going on because there were some costumed men who were dressed in animal furs and fleeces and with bells around their waists. They had a mask on which was very big and had horns. Afterwards, we learned that the ritual is meant to scare away evil spirits. They walk and dance through the village to scare away the evil spirits and to provide a good harvest, health and happiness to the village during the year.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog because it’s something that I will remember my whole life! The ritual is something that I had never seen before so I thought it was very interesting and I was glad to have seen it! I advise everyone to visit this country and see the ritual at least once in their lives!

Talk to you soon!

Xoxo Anou

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukeri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Bulgaria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martenitsa