ABOUT THE WINTER TRADITIONS
Through the centuries the Bulgarian people have modeled their holidays and all connected with them customs with love and care. Through the centuries the traditions have given the people the opportunity to create beauty and taste beauty and have also helped them grow spiritually.
The winter rites in the Teteven region start with Christmas and the very preparation for the holiday. Christmas has two ingredients – the festive table and the Christmas rites.
On Christmas Eve every woman from Teteven arranges a variety of meatless dishes, dried plums, walnuts, baked pumpkin, apples, honey, freshly baked bread and many other items. The oldest in the family divides the rite bread and gives each member of the family a small piece of it, usually for health. A big tree chunk or “budnik” burns in the fireplace during the whole night – a symbol of the never setting sun.
In the Slavonic calendar Christmas represents the revival of the sun, which starts shining brighter after the winter cycle and the day becomes longer. After a long struggle the Christian church has destroyed that pagan holiday by fusing it with the Birth of Christ or Christmas – 25 December.
A group of young men, bachelors and boys walk along the town streets, visit the neighboring houses and sing songs for glorification and blessing of the family – from the child to the oldest man by the fireplace.
Everything ever said or symbolically done on Christmas Eve has the meaning of a prayer for fertility, rich harvest and well being, happiness for the family as a social unit and health and fortune for every single member.
The celebration of the New Year’s Day or Vasiliovden is accompanied by different rites most characteristic and exciting of which the singing of the rings, the “survakane” and the turning of the cheese pastry with fortunes.
The night before the holiday the young single women from Teteven gather around a kettle filled with water and oats and a cornel-tree twig to which they attach their maiden rings using a red string for the purpose. On the next day with songs and blessings starts the ritual of taking the rings out of the kettle and calling the fortunes for every young woman – how lucky she would be and when she would get married.
On the first day of the New Year the children visit the neighboring houses carrying with them a “survachka” a cornel-tree twig decorated with bright woolen threads and small coins. The children then bless the members of the families they visit and wish them health and fortune all through the new year.
The winter holidays in Teteven show that the people living in the Balkan know how to amuse themselves. Other than that the holidays pass on from generation to generation the worldly wisdom, work experience, cultural values and moral virtues of the people.
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