Vitanovtsi\nvillage is located 7 km northwest of Pernik town between Lyulin, Viskyar and\nLyubash Mountains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the\nparticipants in the survakari<\/em> group \u2013\nBoncho Pavlov, for many years disguises like a priest and recounts the time\nwhen he started: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t married at that time, I was still a bachelor.\nWe gathered on the evening and disguised in the school. We slept there overnight\nand prepared there. Sometimes we even went to the empty house of granny Tsana,\nnobody lived there and for that reason, we gathered there to prepare during the\nnight. Everyone would make his own mask at home prior to the event. There were masks\nwith leather and masks with feathers. And the children would mostly disguise as\ngypsies. We would paint our faces with the soot from the stove to blacken them.\n<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We went out early in the morning, it was still dark\noutside. Nowadays, they get out much later, about eight o\u2019clock. And we started\nwhile it was still dark \u2013 about six and a half \u2013 seven. We started from the\nlower neighborhood, passed from house to house, stopped in every yard and\ncontinued along the whole street, visiting all the houses. Then we went to\nGeren neighborhood and afterwards went back along the main street. This way we\nvisited the whole village. The hosts gave us gifts \u2013 brandy (rakia), meat. At\nthat time, all the households would raise pigs and there was plenty of meat,\nand we, the survakars, sometimes would gather up to two buckets of meat. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end, we stopped here in front of the school and\nwe performed a \u201cwedding\u201d in the manner it used to be in the past. A \u201cwedding\nceremony\u201d, a \u201cprayer\u201d, songs, dances\u2026 There was a \u201cbride\u201d in the group, a\n\u201cbridegroom\u201d, \u201cmother-in-law\u201d, \u201cfather-in-law\u201d, \u201cbest man\u201d. They were dressed\nin the local sleeveless dresses with silk kerchiefs on their heads. We give the\n\u201cbride\u201d a pitcher and take her to the fountain to fill water in it and we have\nput some coins in it, as on a real wedding. She would strike the pitcher in the\nfountain, the pitcher breaks and the children rummage in the trough to pick up\nthe coins. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the eve of 14 January, when we have went around the\nwhole village and have performed the \u201cwedding ceremony\u201d in front of the school,\nwe went to the local pub. There we would put the pieces of meat on a big stove.\nOn Surova it is obligatory to prepare varivo \u2013 meat with cabbage. We cut the\ncabbage and over it we put the meat pieces. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We celebrated quite nice Surova, here in Vitanovtsi, that\nis the way we call the feast \u2013 Surova. We still celebrate it like that every\nyear, we don\u2019t miss it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Later on\nBoncho Pavlov stopped masking because of failing health. Then his son \u201cbecame\nkeen\u201d on disguising. He came into his \u201cinheritance\u201d and started playing a\n\u201cpriest\u201d in the group. The grandchildren and the daughter-in-law also\nparticipate as a \u201cyoung priest\u201d\/\u201cyoung sexton\u201d and a \u201cnun\u201d. Several years in\nturn the whole family disguises as a \u201cpriest\u2019s family\u201d. They perform the same\non the festival in Pernik. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Recorded in\n2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n