yesterday was the first of march, and while not quite a holiday, it is still kinda celebrated as such. for the two weeks or so leading up to it, vendors crowd the side of the pedestrian streets selling martinitsi, red and white braided bracelets. everyone buys tons of these martinitsi (or many make their own from yarn) and on the first of may you hand them out to all your friends and say chestit Baba Mart (happy grandma march). i even got one from the billiards bar that we go to pretty often.
anyway, i am supposed to keep these bracelets on until i see either a stork, or the first buds of spring, afterwhich i am to tie them on to a young tree for good luck. i imagine i may see a stork first, as i have been going bird watching about every day for work lately, but we will see.
overall i think it is a pretty cool tradition, and kinda reminded me of valentines day in elementry school because then everyone gets tons of cards. my bulgarian friend that is a teacher here in burgas says he has enough of these things to fill up one arm (although he only wears like 5).
monday though is actually a real holiday. its national liberation day, marking the time when bulgaria was liberated from control of the ottoman empire, ending about 500 years of turkish rule. bulgarians still get pissed when they talk about 'living under the turkish yolk' and this is undoubtedly a big holiday for them. however, i dont think there is any specific tradition that they do for it, just get out of work and spend time with the families. should be fun though
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Stories, updates and opinions from a guy out seeing the world
2 comments:
Yo man, any way you could bring back a couple of those Bulgarian good luck bracelets? Or send them back ; ). Hope all is well my friend . . .
Have you heard that Baba Marta was originally a Pagan holiday? I heard that somewhere but was not 100% sure of its accuracy.
-Tyler
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