Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2025 All Rights Reserved

“Thracian mysteries” in Nessebar’s old town

4
Photo: Nessebar Municipality

A festival in what was once Mesembria, as the ancient Thracians called the sliver of land surrounded by sea, Nessebar of today, takes visitors back thousands of years by re-enacting ancient mysteries and rituals.


The programme of the “Thracian mysteries” festival, organized by Academia Orphica on 26 and 27 August, features two interactive shows – “Thracian mystery drama” and “Mystery of the Thracian Heros”. Tsvetan Gaidarski, director of the Academia, says that the Thracian mysteries were not an acting ruse to lure people with a spectacle and occurrences that never happened from a distance, they were entirely connected with the sacral roots of existence. That is why the audience will be actively involved, experiencing, along with the actors, the sacred beginning through dance, speech and music.

“Unlike other cultures which we know little about, the Thracians have left material evidence in our lands – of the way they lived, of their art, of the way they arranged their lives around the sacred, and the way they communicated with it,” says Todor Yotov, director of the festival. “This evidence is there to be seen on plaques, in artifacts, in megalith stones.”

The authentic modes in the music of the Thracians are still discernible in our day, says Todor Yotov.

“The modes were written down in an old kind of musical notation. The church chants of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom have a connection with the past, as does folklore – there are regions in the country where there are still echoes of these ancient modes.


Music as such is one of the languages presenting the connection between the sacral and the occurrences in our world.”

The festival programme also includes the exhibition “Thracian mysteries” by artist Dilyana Angelova, as well as a lecture on the sacred language of the Thracians and what it means to modern man.

Photos: Academia Orphica



Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

Gallery

More from category

Spanish writer Ana Andreu Baquero to present her novel "The Princess of Buchenwald"

Spanish writer Ana Andreu Baquero is coming to Bulgaria to present her novel "The Princess of Buchenwald" , the Cervantes Institute, which is organising the event with the Hermes publishing house, announced.  The presentation of the book is scheduled..

published on 2/12/25 8:10 AM

Bulgaria Gallery in Rome dedicates an evening to healer Ivan Raev

On February 12, in the cosy space of the Bulgaria Gallery in the heart of Rome, compatriots and Italians will gather to commemorate a Bulgarian healer who with perseverance and dedication managed to change the lives of thousands of..

published on 2/11/25 8:41 PM
Georgi Grozev

Georgi Grozev studies trumpet in Ghent and represents Bulgaria around the world

"Music discovered me," says Georgi Grozev and tells us with a smile how in kindergarten he went to sign up for piano lessons on his own. "And that is how my journey in music started, almost as a joke." Georgi Grozev studies..

published on 2/11/25 1:14 PM