Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Celebrating Todorovden with horse races

Photo: BGNES

Today is Todorovden, also called Horse Easter. As is the tradition, on this day horses are fed, after which horse races are organized. What is known as Todorov bread is baked, adorned with the figure of a stylized horseshoe and horse head.

Photo: BGNES

In iconography and in the folk calendar, St. Theodore Tyrone is depicted as a dragon-slayer on horseback, a symbol of victory against paganism. “There is a connection with the proto-Bulgarian ethnic element in the formation of a unified Bulgarian identity. Proto-Bulgarians were a horse-riding, warring people, hence the connection between Todorovden and the horse – a celestial intermediary between the lower and the higher realm,” says Iliya Valev from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies.



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.

More from category

Atanas Zapryanov

Bulgaria is ready with new military aid package for Ukraine (UPDATED)

The formation of the next aid package for Ukraine is at the final stage and it can be submitted to the Council of Ministers today, said caretaker Minister of Defense Atanas Zapryanov, who participated in a conference on the occasion..

published on 7/22/24 3:32 PM
Kristian Vigenin

If BSP receives the third mandate, it will try to form expert cabinet (UPDATED)

The return of the second mandate was not unexpected, deputy chairman of the BSP Kristian Vigenin said. According to him, forming a government within the framework of the 50th parliament is increasingly difficult to achieve...

published on 7/22/24 2:28 PM

PP-DB returns the second mandate immediately after it was handed over

President Rumen Radev handed over the second exploratory mandate to form a government to the second largest parliamentary group in the 50th National Assembly - "We Continue the Change" - "Democratic Bulgaria" coalition (PP-DB).  At the handing..

published on 7/22/24 12:14 PM