“Do you know, my love, the feast is coming to Streltsi village, when harvest is over, when the wheat is in the barn, a big feast is coming to our pretty village,” – the refrain in this folk song marks the end of harvest time every year in one of the most fertile regions in this country – Thrace. The festival is at the end of July and it is dedicated to bread and to fertility.

There is a saying that no one is bigger than bread and it is a proverb that has become a motto for one and all – participants and visitors to the festival alike.

Hundreds of people gather in the shady park of Streltsivillage to celebrate the hard work of the harvesters with songs and a kind word. We all know the long road bread has to travel to reach our table, the older people in the village say. They call bread God’s gift because to have a good harvest, conditions throughout the year have to have been good. Once, bread was more than food, it was regarded as a symbol of life, prosperity, success. Cherished guests are welcomed with bread and salt, even in our day bread is still part of the ritual when a baby is born.

“Bread is a symbol of life, of prosperity, of success. That is how it has been for thousands of years, that is how it shall be in future,” people in Streltsisay as they get ready for the bread festival, that this year kicks off on 30 July.

Srednogorka vocal group from the Father Paisius community culture club in Brezovo has once again been invited to take part. It is an amateur group with a host of awards and distinctions from different folklore festivals. The bread festival invariably includes performances of theirs and especially the song “Hey, Velo, Velo” that recreates an ancient Bulgarian harvest ritual.

“Harvest songs are usually performed by women, because it was women who did the harvesting, the men tied together the sheaves of corn,” says Stoyanka Pouhleva, a member of the group from Brezovo.

“I have taken part in the festival for a long time, ever since the group was founded. After the democratic changes in 1989, the group broke up. Ten years ago, we, older members decided to put together a new group and we are now preparing a concert to mark its 10^th anniversary. Our repertoire features lots of music from the Rhodopes, we sing songs from Northern Bulgaria, from Dobroudja. There are 16 smaller towns and villages in our municipality and in each one there is a festival of some sort where we always go to sing. We have lots of local landmarks where celebrations are organized and we take part in them all. Vocal groups like ours have a future because there are a lot of young people who want to sing. The only thing is that money is short which makes it difficult for us to travel long distances to take part in more folklore festivals in this country and abroad. We have a very good dance ensemble in Brezovo of around 50 children aged 6 to 12 and they listen to our songs and learn the steps of the horo. They are really keen on dancing.”

“We, in the group prepare our songs ourselves, we sing by ear and we don’t have a conductor, we select our own repertoire, depending on the kind of festival we are going to perform at,” says Petka Zhekova, another singer from Brezovo.

“The folk costumes we wear were given us by the culture community club, they are very old. I love to sing our songs, even in the garden and at home I sing. We have lovely festivals and songs, but in our town there is no work for young people. The population used to be 15,000, now it is 6,000 and every year the numbers go down.”

Georgi Nedelchev is 72 and he has spent 32 of them touring the country as a musician in a folk orchestra. Now he is eager to join in any performance by the Brezovo group.

“My wife keeps asking me if I haven’t tired of music. And I say – where words end, that is where music begins. Music is something I will never tire of and I will never stop playing, whatever may come. Day in and day out, and now, with this heatwave in Plovdiv and the region, we go out to sing and play for people to enjoy.”

English version: Milena Daynova