Kukeri Festival

I promised to show the pictures from the Bulgarian Kukeri (Mummers) festival we went to a couple of weeks ago. It held place in Pernik the week we got back from London. I really wanted to go because we missed out on it last year, and sadly we don't have another chance to see it as we are leaving this summer.

So we loaded everyone in the car on a Saturday and went to Pernik. The weather was really awful. It got very cold suddenly and to make it even worse it was raining/snowing. But I am glad it did not scare us from going. It was an interesting experience to see the festival.

Kukeri is a very old Bulgarian ritual of scaring evil spirits away. It is done in all the rural farming villages of Bulgaria during New Year's time or before lent. The bachelor men dress up in costumes made out of skins of animals and have big cow bells on their leather belts.

Then they go around the village dancing and making a lot of noise with their cowbells. This way scaring evil spirits away and providing good health and good harvest to the village. The Kukeri traditionally go to each and every house in the village performing their dances. If the family doesn't have children they'd dance a weird sexual dance to bring fertility to the family.

This tradition is not only in Bulgaria but in all the Balkan countries. Different countries, different regions have different costumes. They are all loud and have some kind of big bells though. Apparently the main weapon from evil spirits is a lot of noise.

Sonia slept through the whole thing in a carrier on my chest. It's an interesting thing that babies are unfazed by that much noise but wake up right away if they hear the bed squeak. Mystery of mysteries.

The girls thought it was Bulgarian halloween and were interested in it for a while. Katelyn did not like getting close to the costumed people. Which I don't blame her as some were very scary and they also stunk like sheep with all that skin, fur and all.

Matt made it all better though by getting the girls crazy neon colored cotton candy which may or may not made their pee colorful. I wish we could stay longer than we did but it was crazy cold and the girls were complaining. I am glad we made it to the festival this year as it was one of the things to check off while we are in Bulgaria. This country has some very old and great traditions. And I love things like that. I think all these traditions of different countries make them unique.