Easter in Bulgaria
By Peri Bies YES Abroad student
The majority of Bulgarians are Eastern Orthodox Christians, and therefore celebrate Easter a week after non-orthodox branches of Christianity do so. This year, Orthodox Easter fell on April 24th. This is a journal of what I experienced:
It’s the week leading up to Easter. Thursday we decorated eggs with color and these metallic sheets of paper that, when rolled around the egg, left silver or gold markings behind. I made an “American” themed egg, which was striped blue, white, and red; a color scheme more reminiscent of the flag of the Netherlands than anything else, but we dubbed it American nevertheless. I learned today that Bulgarians don't have the tradition of hiding their eggs around the household-the idea seems strange to them. What if you don’t find them all? My host dad asked me. I replied by holding my nose and shaking my head.
The plan is to consume the eggs on Sunday during Easter lunch. On the topic of food, Friday afternoon we traveled far (30 minutes by car), and braved the grumpy babushkas of Kaufland-a hugely popular supermarket in Bulgaria-in order to buy all we’d need for Sunday.
One purchase in particular surprised me. There was this cooler in the center of the main isle containing a mountain of lambs’ hindquarters. They were loosely wrapped in saran wrap and piled upon each other in one massive heap. I later learned that lamb is a dish traditionally served for Easter in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, which would explain the large supply.
Aside from that, we picked up a few herbs, milk, and other necessities for the easter meal. Tomorrow my host family and I (along with a few family friends) will be visiting a small town known as Koprivshtitsa, where the first shots of the 1876 Bulgarian uprising were fired.
On Saturday we made the two-hour drive East to visit Koprivshtitsa, stopping at a little town known as Chelopech for the kids to run around and for the adults to get a much-needed coffee-break. A family friend told me about how she used to work at the nearby gold mine. She said that when the ore is extracted, it is not what we consider gold. It is more of a black mess that must then be transported to Burgas (a coastal town), and then South America to be fully refined.
We had a very interesting conversation about a method for refining that involves cyanide. The Chelopech mine had tried to implement it, but hadn’t been able to convince the local environmental organizations that it wouldn’t further pollute the area.
After that discussion, it was back to the car for another hour’s travel. The sights from the car were beautiful. Driving there we had the Stara Planina (стара планина) mountain range on our left, and the Sredna Gora (средна гора) range to our right. Koprivshtisa itself is located in the Sredna Gora range, hidden away among a cluster of mountains. On the way there, we came across a little waterfall by the side of the road and had to investigate. We found a sign translated in five languages about preventing the spread of the African Swine Virus.
Koprivstitsa’s architecture has been for the most part preserved. The style of the buildings are stooping and brightly-colored. We visited a number of museums that are the repurposed houses of some of Bulgaria’s most famous revolutionaries.
The April Uprising had not been successful in and of itself. The brutality of the Ottomans in suppressing it led to wide-spread condemnation from the rest of Europe, and eventually the Russo-Turkish war. Bulgaria became a sovereign state in 1878.
Below is a picture of me next to a statue of Todor Kableshkov, the author of the famous “bloody letter”(кървавото писмо/kurvavoto pismo) that marked the start of the uprising. A local Ottoman governor had been killed, and his blood used to stamp the letter (hence the name).
There had been a lot of well-off people living in Koprivshtitsa, which is the reason the town remained untouched by the Ottomans after many of its inhabitants rebelled.
The well-off “chorbadzhjii”(чорбаджии) were able to pay off the Ottoman soldiers. Many of the other villages were not so lucky, and were razed.
Sunday lunch consisted of a spring soup of assorted herbs with kashkaval, the aforementioned lamb, kozunak, a salad, and the eggs we had painted on Thursday. Everyone at the table cracks the egg of the person sitting next to them. They take the egg held in their hand, and tap it against the top of their neighbor’s egg. Whoever ends up with the last unbroken egg is believed to have a year of good luck.
Kozunak, a braided sweet bread only made for Easter, is also an important staple. My host mom made some by hand, as well as bought a few loaves from the supermarket, just in case we ran out. My host dad made the lamb with a special recipe that runs in his family. The lamb is washed, and shallow cuts are made with a knife. The marinade of olive oil, salt, paprika, thyme, mint, rosemary and a few other spices is rubbed into the meat. It is then wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for twenty four hours before it’s cooked in the oven for another three. It was very delicious!
Unfortunately, my host dad was sick, and so we didn’t have any guests or participate in any religious services. It was still a really cool experience however, and the Kozunak will be eaten for weeks to come!
Here are a few more miscellaneous pictures from Koprivshtitsa:
This is a statue of Georgi Benkovski. He was integral in the planning of the April Uprising. He formed a “flying band”(Хвърковата чета/Hvarkovata cheta) of men on horseback who traveled around to the surrounding villages mobilizing insurgents and helping towns fight back against the Ottomans.
There were a lot of horse-drawn carts in Koprivshtitsa. It’s also a common sight just outside of Sofia and in smaller villages throughout Bulgaria.
