Bogdanov Dol is located about 10 km from the town of Pernik and is in close proximity to the main road to the town of Breznik.
One of the most active survashkari, who from the year 1966 until today, for 52 years has not missed a single Surova feast, tells that he started at the age of eight, because from his relatives 17-18 people took part in the feast in Stamenova neighborhood. Back then he was the only child in the group. The other children in the village hid under their beds when the survashakri came. Now he is the oldest survashkar in his family, but they all still participate. He keeps 15-16 masks, gives them to anyone who wants to take part, but then takes them back for the next Surova.
In the 60s and 70s of the 20th century the masks were called likove (faces), they were made of bird feathers and wings and some of them were 3-4 m high. Now they are mostly from leather. The front part is a wooden pot, made from stumps of red willow and poplar, which they gather along the river. A few decades ago, when many animals were bred in the village, finding and processing leathers was not a problem. The “Rhodope” meat processing factory in Pernik also provided with materials. Now there are no animals in the village, but the survashkari are dressed in leather overalls, which the group managed to supply in the 90s from the warehouses of the local military bases, which ceased to function. The local survashkari use horse tails for their staffs and masks, because “long ago the flag of the proto-Bulgarians used to be a horse tail”. They are supplied by the same survashkar from places where horses are slaughtered. The storyteller has performed all kinds of characters – “the bride”, “the standard bearer”, “the priest”, “the bear keeper wearing a shepherd’s woolen cloak”, “the best man”, “the father in law”, a survashkar with a mask and heavy bells and what not…
On the night of 13 to 14 January the whole village waits for them with love and hope. The doors are open for them all around. They go from one neighborhood to the other. People can tell where they are from the loud yelling “Surovaaa” and the bells. The survashkari do not go to a house where someone has recently deceased. Sometimes they do not even pass through the neighborhood. And if someone from the group has recently deceased, they do not go on Surova, or disguised and masked visit his grave and honor him on the day. There were some years with more death cases and the group did not visit the houses but only passed through the main streets, because the residents themselves wait, honor and want the feast and insist that the group plays.
One year on 14 January the Surova feast coincided with the wedding of a local couple. On the one end of the village square was the chain dance (horo) of the wedding, and on the other was the horo of the survashkari. Then they played together. The Surova “bride” joined the horo dance with the real bride and the experience was amazing. The whole village gathered to watch and the joy of the double celebration was discussed during the whole year.
The money, which the hosts give to the “bride”, the group always donates for the treatment of ill children.
Once each house in Bogdanov Dol was inhabited and the tour around the village was long and tiresome, but full of joyful experience. Now many of those houses are empty, but the Surova is a living and loved holyday. There are around 300 permanent residents of the village, 60 of whom participate in Surova masked. A great part of them are children. Their parents invest a lot if they have not been survashkari themselves and their children do not have a requisite to inherit from them. The mask, the costume, the leather belt, and the bells, numbers 1 to 16, cost around 3000 leva, but those parents spend the money so that their children are able to participate. Because “there is no Surova anywhere else in the world. Only here, with us”.
Recorded in 2018
