ABOUT THE TOWN OF PERNIK
The town of Pernik has 94 480 inhabitants and is located at 710 meters above the sea level. It is the largest town in Southwestern Bulgaria after
Sofia. It is settled at 30 km. to the southwest of
Sofia, 59 km. to the northeast of
Kyustendil and 70 km. to the north of
Blagoevgrad. The town is regional center and it is the largest coal output center in Bulgaria.
HISTORY
Pernik became part of Danubian Bulgaria in the 9 th century and soon after that was turned into strategic fortress, which kept the back the Byzantine invasions towards Sredets (Sofia) and Northwestern Bulgaria. Completely destroyed by an earthquake in the 11 th century. Because of the numerous raids and damages during the Ottoman yoke, its population was scattered and numbered barely 1000 when Bulgaria was liberated. In 1891 Pernik coal output center was declared state property (first in Bulgaria). In 1929 Pernik was declared town.
TRADITIONS
For ages in the night of 13th to 14th of January the lands of Pernik region have resounded with the ringing of bells, with songs, chanting and blessings for good health, longevity, rich harvests, and good luck. The participants prepared the whole year through for this holiday, known as Surva, and the entire village celebrated the holiday. It was extremely interesting for the participants to find out what preparations their friends of the adjacent village had made, in order to display better and more interesting faces (masks) than theirs. Since 1966, the City Council started to organize and to carry out periodically regional and national festivals of the Surva games in which thousands of children, adolescents and adults participated. The Pernik Festival was internationally acknowledged by the Foundation of European Carnival Cities – FECC, seated in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Since January 1st 1995 Pernik is the 43rd member of this respectable international organization and has the opportunity to be present in the wide network of festival cities around the world. It is a unique festival that represents the entire variety of masquerade games in Bulgaria. It preserves, enriches and exhibits the most vital and stable traditions of the masquerade rites, which the Bulgarian people have kept from ancient times until present day. The festival is a sort of review of the winter and pre-spring masking customs. The masked participants are called survakari, babugeri, dzhamilari, etc. They are dressed in hides with the fur remaining on the outside, or in traditional women's costumes. All participants wear heavy strings of bells, cowbells, and rattles on their waists, and on their heads they wear grotesque masks made of feathers, wings, whole birds, animal heads, etc.
TRANSPORT
Pernik is important center with convenient road and rail connections to
Sofia,
Blagoevgrad,
Kulata,
Kyustendil. There are trolley bus and motorbus transport lines in the city area. The transportation of passengers is carried out for the most part by the municipal transport agency.
The E 79 highway passes through the town's territory, as well as many first-rate, second-rate and third-rate roads. One of the oldest trade-routs of the Balkans – Sofia-Thessalonica-Skopie traverses the region.
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