Breznik: A Song of Ice and Tires

By most accounts, which I have gathered from numerous other Fulbrighters with whom I’ve spoken, these are some of the darkest days of the year.

By “darkest,” I do not mean physically, as in the decreased hours of sunlight. In fact, I was in Tallinn, Estonia for the winter solstice, where the sun had completely set around 3:30pm and the sky was pitch black by 5pm. That was actually quite a good day.

No, by “darkest,” I mean emotionally, mentally. Culture shock is in full force for everyone in my social circle. Teaching and dealing with school are universally stressful; I know this to be the case for myself, and certainly others have shared recent tales of experiences that make me grateful for the comparatively lesser stresses I have endured. Then, there was the long Christmas and New Years break, which was so wonderful that anything following its conclusion–especially a return to work–necessarily led to disappointment. Many of us briefly reunited with family, embraced (or even met for the first time) that special someone, and relaxed with friends in exciting new places.

Thus, it is easy to see why the prospect of returning to our places of work, in a culture where we did not quite feel at home, was neither entirely appealing nor remotely easy to stomach.

Despite the persistent gloom, several weekends after my return, a few of us organized a trip to experience a cultural phenomenon very important to Bulgaria: the Kukeri (mummers) festival.

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After waking up at some ungodly hour to catch a preliminary train, we first arrived in the town of Pernik, which was about halfway to Breznik, our intended destination to see Kukeri. After some milling about, we inquire at the bus station about buses that would take us the rest of the way, as one of us had intel that such buses ran fairly frequently between the two towns. As is a common experience in Bulgaria, this intel turned out to be bad, and we were forced to call two taxis to take the six of us the rest of the way.

Looking out the window of the cab into the desolate whiteness of heavy snowfall, I make a mental note of how this road has not received much attention from the snow plows; the main things keeping it somewhat navigable were the tracks of other cars, who had braved this same route earlier on. Apparently, these conditions were perfectly acceptable for our driver, who drove at what was probably above the speed limit even if this were a dry, straight road.

Our cab driver fumbles with the small radio in the car; he tunes into a station, and the beat of the song currently playing quickly becomes recognizable to me. Excited, I turn around to the back seat and say, “Kait, it’s Lana [Del Rey]!”

Kait’s eyes go wide. She braces herself against whatever she could in the car.

Her reaction made little sense to me, until I feel the tires of the taxi begin to skid beneath us. I turn around; I see that we are completely careening to the left side of the road. Worse yet, there is an oncoming car only a few yards ahead.

The driver yanks the wheel hard to the right; we manage to stop, and the other car simply swerves by, honking just barely enough to make it clear that he meant to honk, but too lazily and not hard enough to give the brief noise any real meaning or express any deep annoyance. Our driver calmly mutters something under his breath, and lets our friends in the taxi behind us drive ahead to claim their share of the risk.

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Perhaps because of the adrenaline, I don’t remember how long it took after that near-death incident to reach Breznik. But, by some divine miracle, we did. And at a reasonable time, too! We start heading into town, asking an elderly couple which way the main square was. Just after they explain and we thank them, I notice that, despite there being some roads closed off, almost no one was outside. Even though it was freezing outside and snow was quickly accumulating, the town looked a little too dead to be having a festival right now. I note this to Lauren, who is leading the pack with me. She looks sheepishly down at the ground and says, “Well, our driver told us that the festival doesn’t start for another four hours. No one else but me in the car spoke Bulgarian, so now you and I are the only two that have this information.”

“Maybe we should inform the rest of them,” I suggest.

“Hmm. Nah.” And so we didn’t, for some time.

After reaching the square and taking some obligatory selfies, we headed up to Breznik’s main church, which was totally gorgeous. Even better was that we met a lady who took care of the church; she invited us inside the church office to warm up by a heater as we made small talk with our broken Bulgarian skills. She also kept reminding us that we were allowed to take pictures inside the church; this is usually a no-no in Orthodox churches, which is interesting. I declined this time, but her warmth–both from her personality and the heater–really set the tone for the rest of our experience in the town.

We continued to explore Breznik a bit more, and sat down in several cafes and restaurants to pass the time. People seemed very, almost unusually, friendly; our waitresses, though perhaps forgetting a few side items we ordered, were wonderful, putting me at greater ease in this new place. Vendors, selling candies, roasted chesnuts, and souvenirs were amiable also. One turned out to speak Spanish, and another Fulbrighter, eager to hold back the decay of her Spanish skills, practiced with him for some time outside even as the snowfall continued.

After finishing up some beers at a cafe, we all began to don our jackets and scarves to brave the harsh temperature once more. Some sort of a rhythmic noise had developed outside, signalling to us the beginning of the actual festival. I head to the bathroom to ensure there will not be discomfort later on; I look out of a window situated inside, from which I capture my first glimpses of the performers. It is hard to describe them, so I will show pictures and videos, but I was struck by the juxtaposition between the mummers, dressed basically as pagan monsters, and an Orthodox priest swinging around a censer between them.

Witnessing the mummers’ costumes was interesting enough, but the noise generated by the bells was almost musical, and rhythmic enough to get me dancing to a beat (apologies to anyone who might have witnessed that).

After watching all of this for an hour or two, the time came to head back to the “bus station”–some building with bus schedules, possibly outdated, posted on the windows–to catch what might be, for all I knew, the last bus back to Sofia.

As I was returning to the cafe after a walk with Lauren, we realized that we didn’t actually have a picture of us with any of the performers. We approached one man with a particularly interesting mask, which was several feet tall, and asked him in Bulgarian what probably sounded like, “Excuse, may we picture with you?” He grins and hoists his mask up into the air, carefully setting it down on his head; then he motions us in, and we snap a selfie.

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According to folklore, the purpose of Kukeri is to drive away evil spirits. Before actually having seen it, I thought of Kukeri in a very theoretical way; having read part of a book on the festival as part of a Post-Soviet Life class project, my mind considered more so the various possible meanings behind the bells and masks carried by the performers and how the festival had changed since the collapse of Communism. But witnessing this event live in the freezing cold of mountainous Breznik gave me a different perspective, a more human one; Kukeri was just fun, and it brought people together in a good, beneficial way.

Moreover, I am a believer in Kukeri. It definitely does drive away evil spirits; this much was evident not only from the demeanor of the townsfolk, but also from the little bit of faith in Bulgaria restored to me as a result of this pilgrimage to Breznik, a tiny ray of sunlight so desperately needed in these dark, wintry days.

Certainly, this good mood of mine helped me endure the bus ride back, which was much like the taxi ride, except on a rickety bus, through more mountains, and featuring cliffs mere feet from the side of the “road.” But, the snow-covered vistas were magnificent; this, combined with my experience at the festival, gives Breznik a special place in my heart.