A folk festival in Bulgaria? That’s music to my ears
BULGARIANS love their traditional music. They have a TV channel devoted to it, and one show – a sort of Bulgaria’s Got Talent for folk acts – features people of all ages swaying in stately unison.
Indeed, they are so proud of the music that when asked to include something in the capsule aboard the Voyager 2 space probe, they sent tracks from the album Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, in the hope that aliens would like it too.
I love this kind of folklore as long as it really is part of the local culture and not just put on for tourists. In Bulgaria it is genuine: practically every village in the mountains has at least one choir, and their own particular variation of traditional dress, and many hold festivals in the way that English villages stage fetes.
When I decided to go to Bulgaria I looked for a holiday combining exploring the remote southern mountains with a festival. Despite much trawling on the internet, I couldn’t find a package on the right dates, so instead I combined a group walking tour with an independent excursion of my own.
I began by joining a group of 11 other walkers, led by a guide who, it turned out, danced as naturally as she walked. We stayed in a village called Yagodina high in the remote Rodopi mountains.
Apart from the hotel, Yagodina was totally devoid of any tourist infrastructure. The hole in the wall was not a cash machine but a spring. For the people living there, the end of communism did not appear to have resulted in a dramatic increase in consumer choice – the only two shops sold the barest of necessities.
Each morning we set off through pine forests and scrambled above the tree line to meadows so full of wild flowers that I counted 22 varieties in one square metre as I was having my picnic.
We walked up to nine miles every day. The level of difficulty was described as ‘moderate’ but I found it quite challenging. Unlike most of the other members of the group, I didn’t have walking poles, so I picked up two sticks and tapped along until I got into a rhythm. On the way down, we walked past fields of potatoes – the staple diet in the mountains – and through Muslim villages, a legacy of the Ottoman empire. It was easy to see why folklore survived in these places as they are so cut off from the outside world.
At the end of one walk we scrambled down to the Yagodina cave system, its luminescent stalactites and stalagmites dripping eerily as they have done for millions of years. Evidence of prehistoric man was displayed almost casually, including a mug with a handle that looks as if it could be used to served tea today.
On my last evening, a group of villagers came to the hotel to entertain us. Rashly, some of us agreed to put on traditional costumes too and dance rather inelegantly with them.
When I came to leave the group the next morning, I had to sign a release form saying I was responsible for my own actions, which made my trip to the festival seem more adventurous than it really was. I splashed out on a cheap taxi for the trip across the mountains to the ski resort of Bankso (the one place I don’t want to go back to). Next morning, things became more difficult as the locals use the Cyrillic alphabet which I found impenetrable, so I couldn’t read the destination on the bus timetable. Fortunately, a woman, who told me in broken English that her daughter was picking tomatoes in Chichester, spooned me on to a crowded minibus to the Pirin mountains.
Through the trees came the sound of singing and the banging of drums. Each village had a stage of its own where its people performed their songs and were awarded certificates for participating.
Traditionally, women aren’t allowed to play instruments so they sang while the men played flutes, fiddles and drums. It was a joyous occasion, put on for their own pleasure, not for tourists. Once the certificates had been awarded, everyone joined in, regardless of whether they were wearing traditional costume or jeans.
I resisted invitations to dance and just sat and watched. A young teacher said she ‘revered’ their customs. ‘I hope you are getting a good impression of Bulgaria,’ she said. I certainly was.