The Lygers » Kukeri http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog Sun, 04 Dec 2011 06:32:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Kukeri Festival – Pernik http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/kukeri-festival-pernik/ http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/kukeri-festival-pernik/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2006 07:48:00 +0000 Ryan http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/?p=156 This past Saturday I went to Pernik – a small city just outside Sofia. Pernik is basically a city full of old, falling apart industrial factories. The cities’ unemployment rate is one of the highest in the country (interesting since Sofia – only 20 minutes away, has one of the lowest). However, we weren’t there to see old industrial sites, we were there for the semi-annual “International Festival of Masquerade Games.” That is what the official name is, although everyone just calls it the Kukeri festival.

I figured a huge festival in a small city would be easy to find, but I still had to drive around a bit before finding it (partially due to taking a wrong exit off the main road).
The temperature was nice on Saturday (well, above freezing – which is nice compared to the previous week).

The Kukeri festival is a Bulgarian tradition originating mostly from the mountains in the south and southwestern part of the country (from what I’ve been told). The idea is to drive away evil and bring in the coming of spring. They do this by dressing up in various costumes. The centerpiece for most costumes was the mask. Many of the groups had masks that were 4 or 5 ft. high. They were made out of various dead animals with designs on them. They used fur from all kinds of animals as well as feathers. Several of the masks had the dead animal the material came from prominently displayed on the face. One mask had a duck head sticking out of it, another had a dead rabbit spread out across it. Basically, this festival never would have happened in the US because PETA probably would have screamed and moaned until they shut it down. Most performers also had large bells around their waist. The idea was to jump around a lot during the performance and make as much noise as possible (to scare off winter).

The event took place in the city square where there was a large oval sectioned off for the performers. There was a road leading to the oval where performers waited for their turn to show off. In this respect it was kind of like a parade where each performance troop was from a different town of village. Each one would perform for 15 minutes of so in the main oval before the next troop would come on. They all were slightly different. Not all of them wore masks. Some of them had dancers come out with them – some of them had musicians.

Apparently there were a few foreign groups at the festival, but I didn’t see them. My coworker went on Sunday and saw an Irish group and, according to what I have read, there were 5 or 6 other foreign groups participating. All-in-all it was interesting, although after a couple hours I had seen what I needed to see and headed back to Sofia.

]]> http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/kukeri-festival-pernik/feed/ 0 Kukeri 3 http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/155/ http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/155/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2006 07:46:00 +0000 Ryan http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/?p=155 These guys didn’t have any masks, but they had a lot of bells and made a lot of noise. They also had a drummer with a really long mustache (even if it is fake).

]]> http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/155/feed/ 0 Kukeri 2 http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/154/ http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/154/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2006 07:42:00 +0000 Ryan http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/?p=154 These are similar to the costumes I saw in the Ethnographic Museum in Sofia. I believe it takes two Abominable Snowmen to make one of these costumes. ]]> http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/154/feed/ 0 Kukeri 1 http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/153/ http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/153/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2006 07:40:00 +0000 Ryan http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/?p=153 Note the dead rabbit spread out on the face of the mask. ]]> http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2006/01/153/feed/ 0