{"id":1134,"date":"2019-05-11T18:29:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-11T15:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2019-05-29T23:45:29","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T20:45:29","slug":"peshtera-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/2019\/05\/11\/peshtera-village\/","title":{"rendered":"Peshtera Village"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The mountain village Peshtera is\nlocated in the region of the town of Zemen, 50 km away from the district town\nPernik. Nowadays, its permanent inhabitants are around 150 people, but they become\nmore than 200 around the days of Surva<\/em>\n(14 January) \u2013 all of them willing to enjoy the excitement of the masquerade. The\nelderly people say that from time immemorial this is the most favorite day of\nthe year. The masked here are called predreshlyatsi (disguised). Their costumes\nare made from old pieces of many-colored fabric cut in bands or from fur turned\ninside out. There is a still going on competition between the participants who\nwill carry the greatest number and the noisiest bells. The masks are often made\nfrom goat or sheep leather, wooden forms, horns and tails. Once the teeth in\nthe widely open mouth were from large white beans, but in our days there are\nsome from wooden pricks \u2013 \u201cto be more fearful\u201d. Collecting materials for the\nmasks is not difficult because all the farmers in the village who raise sheep\nor goats willingly give leathers to help the masquerade and afterwards to see\nthem as a part of those unique pieces of folk applied art. The hard part is the\ntreatment of the leathers at home and this is what S. Evtimov is ambitiously\noccupied with. He first sprinkles them with salt, then several times folds\nevery one of them and waits them to dry up. He then puts them in cool water for\n24 hours, washes them and starts scraping them on a self-made device. At any\ntime of the year, this master of masks has a reserve of 30\u201340 leathers at hand,\nso that if any original idea comes across his mind, he would be able to\ntransform it right away into a fantastic image. He does not work alone and with\npleasure teaches the young men Mario and Svetlin, who otherwise have different\noccupations, but are much attracted by the masks and cannot tear themselves\naway from their magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are 40\u201350 participants in the\nPeshtera masquerade group. Important personages of the \u201cwedding\u201d are the\n\u201cbride\u201d, the \u201cbridegroom\u201d, the \u201cpriest\u201d, the \u201cbrother-in-law\u201d, the \u201csponsors\u201d\nand the \u201cstandard-bearer\u201d. Besides, the village vocal amateur group is\ninvolved. The women are dressed in the traditional costumes from \u201cthe past\ntime\u201d. They have prepared breads and banitsa (cheese pie) and all the time\nfollow the disguised men, singing and dancing. The spectator has the feeling\nthat has come across a real wedding. The 90-years old granny Stanka remembers\nthat in her childhood there were two more characters in the group \u2013 the \u201cOld\nYear\u201d \u2013 a man in ragged clothes, and the \u201cNew Year\u201d- another man in a nice festive\ncostume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the evening of 13 January, the\nmasquerade group dances around the fire with the local people, and then they visit\nsome of the nearby or more remote villages \u2013 Dolna Sekirna, Kosharevo,\nGigintsi, Stefanovo, Lobosh, Drugan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early in the morning on 14 January,\nthe masquerade group starts visiting the houses in their own village. Once,\nwhen it was much more populous, they started as early as the night and a whole\nnight and day were not enough to go around all of them. Now less houses are\ninhabited, but in some of them, they spend about an hour, because the hosts\nhave been impatiently waiting for them, welcome them with abundant meals and do\nnot want to let them continue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last year, the masquerade\ngroup of Peshtera village demonstrated their old tradition of Surva<\/em> to the residents of Sardinia\nIsland. This way the centuries old traditions of the European peoples are\nrecognized and enriched in the modern culture, and are transmitted to the next\ngenerations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recorded in 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n