Health, fertility, and flu?

This past weekend, I went to Pernik to watch the Surva Festival. In Bulgaria, there are Kukeri festivals either right after the New Year or in early March depending on the region. Pernik is a small town near Sofia that holds a huge Kukeri festival called the Surva Festival at the end of January. Kukeri are men dressed in animal costumes who wear big bells around their waists and dance to scare off evil spirits. The whole festival is supposed to bring health and fertility in the new year or as people begin to plant their new crops. Their costumes are designed to scare the spirits, and the bells around their waists make a lot of noise as they dance, also to scare off the spirits. Also during the festival, there are a variety of traditions designed to trick the evil spirits. One is a fake wedding ceremony to distract the evil spirits and draw them away from real weddings. There are also cross dressers and men dressed up as babies. The idea is to draw evil spirits away from women and children and to confuse and distract them. Each region has their own traditional Kukeri costumes, and many of the regions send Kukeri to the festival in Pernik. It was really interesting to see the different variety of costumes.

Wolves?

Traditionally, only men can dance as Kukeri. Apparently, in some areas, that tradition is changing.

Fake wedding ceremony. If you look closely, the "bride" is a man.

Their headdresses had various animal skins and animal motifs woven in. They were highly elaborate and had amazing detail. One of them has a fox skin, and the fox is holding a bird in its mouth.

These guys were from a town about an hour west of Stara Zagora.

Holy moly! So cute! He was part of a troop of men all dressed in these costumes. The men all looked suitably scary and ready to fight off evil spirits. This little guy just looked adorable.

Now I'm back in Stara Zagora, and I have the whole week off. Apparently the Kukeri did not scare off the evil spirits here. We're having flu-cation. The schools in Stara Zagora and several other towns around Bulgaria have been shut down due to a large percentage of students and/or staff contracting flu. So far, I'm healthy. I felt sick last week, but I kept pumping vitamins into my system and it never developed into anything serious. So, I'm crossing my fingers and enjoying my time off. It's freezing outside. I was originally planning on spending the week walking all over the city, but it's been too cold to go out for more than an hour or so at a time. Instead, I've turned my living room into my own private coffee shop. I've got a heater going full blast at my feet, lots of tea and delicious Bulgarian honey standing by, and a huge stack of books to read. Today, I even went the extra mile and made hot chocolate with milk slowly heated over the stove top. It was delicious. Tomorrow, I'll try to brave the cold. But for today, I'm enjoying the time inside and warm.