The beautiful Berende village in the Zemen municipality is situated in the foot of Tsarna gora Mountain, beneath the Tumba peak. Today, there are already only about 20 people permanently living there. At first glance, it seems that live has stopped there. But the feast Surova is alive… Everybody, whose origin starts from this little piece of land, return every year on 13 and 14 January in order to play with the masks, because their descendants have done it and they carry it as a cultural heritage in their hearts and in their souls.
How many people are in the survakari group? The participants in it are three times more than the local population. Some of them are disguised as a bride and a groom, a bear and a bear keeper, a priest, drum-players. They gather before every Surova to decide who would perform these personages and that is the most difficult moment, because all of them want to be bell-wearers – to be hidden behind the masks and to carry the heavy ropes with bells on their waists. Most valuated are the handmade bells hlopatari. The group leader recently bought such bells for his father, whose eyes filled with tears for delight, because the son fulfilled his childhood dream. There are about fifteen children, the youngest being 5-years old, and the oldest – 13. The bell-wearers have masks, made of bird feathers and wings, or others from animal leather on wooden hollows with horns. The costumes are from many-colored pieces of fabric cut into stripes. In the more remote past, these stripes were unicolored, asymmetrical, with different length. The materials are gathered from people who raise animals and birds, and the masquerade participants themselves process them throughout the whole year. Until several years ago, every survashkar made his mask on his own. Today an enthusiast makes about ten new masks every year, so that there is a mask for everyone who wants to disguise. They preserve them in a hall, above which there is an inscription “Survakar’s Club”.
In the evening of 13 January, the Berende masquerade group visits the villages of Elov Dol and Chepino, and welcomes around the fire in their own village groups from other villages, mostly the one from Gigintsi. They always gift the guests with torches, bells, diplomas. One of the survashkars from many years this year made 80 torches to be available for the members of the village group and for the guests as well. On the morning of 14 January the group visits every house, where people are present, to wish them good health and a gratifying year.
Once, in the 1950s–1960s, from every house in the village about ten survashkari took part in the masquerade. Now the inhabited houses are about ten. But, as one of the participants says: “It is sure that while we are around, the Surova will exist. And our children will preserve it after that as well”.
Recorded in 2019 г.
