KOSHAREVO, Bulgaria (Reuters) – Revellers wearing red, some wearing huge masks and belts strung with large copper bells, danced around a hearth on the principal square of a Bulgarian village on Sunday to drive away evil spirits and produce in good health and crops for the Recent Yr.
The festival, held every January within the village of Kosharevo, is often known as “Surva” and is a combination of Christian and pagan rituals that might be traced back to Thracian times.
A number of the dancers, often known as Survakars, or kukers (mummers), wear hand-made picket masks decorated with feathers, which might be as much as two metres high. The loud clanging of the bells on their belts is believed to ward off evil and diseases.
Through the two-day festival, the village, 50 km west of the capital Sofia, is brimming with life as prolonged families gather to greet the Survakars and offer them traditional dishes.
Georgi Ivanov, 29, has been participating within the celebrations since he was five years old. Determined to pass the tradition on, he makes masks and outfits not just for himself, but for his young children too.
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“There may be nothing more exciting than Surva. Nothing, neither birthdays, nor Christmas, nor the Recent Yr. Surva is our time, the time once we develop into higher,” Ivanov said.
“One-two weeks before it I feel as if I’m transforming into another person, as if another energy flows in my veins. The entire village starts to shine,” he said.
(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova. Editing by Jane Merriman)
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