The first day of January is a day filled with emotions and joyful anticipation of a prosperous year in which all family members will be healthy and will make all their dreams come true. In the traditional Bulgarian calendar, 1 January is known as Surva, and also the day of St. Basil the Great. Tens of thousands of people in Bulgaria, named Vasil, Vasko, Vasilka, Vasilena, and their derivatives celebrate their name day on 1 January.

• The lucky charms that go into the banitsa – from cornel twigs down to our day

Many people in our day continue to observe the age-old traditions connected with the New Year and the first day of January. The New Year’s table is usually laden with meat, wine, nuts, fruit, New Year’s banitsa (with lucky charms) and New Year’s bread with a coin inside – and whoever picks the slice with the coin inside will be lucky throughout the year. One tradition that people still love to keep is visiting with family and friends, wishing one another happiness and success, and sitting down to a traditional meal together – beans, sauerkraut, pork, a symbol of abundance and prosperity during the new year.

Our home has to be clean and tidy, on the day we ring in the New Year we should be wearing our best clothes so that the year will be abundant and bountiful.

“On 31 December the dinner is thurified with incense for the third time in the year. (The first thurified dinner is on 20 December, Ignazhden, the day of St. Ignatius, and the second is on Christmas Eve). It is believed that thurification with embers and incense will cleanse the home, banishing the wicked forces out and about at this time of year,” says Maria Boyanova from the Visitors’ Centre of the Ethnographic Museum in Sofia and goes on:

“The “unclean days” continue until 6 January, Epiphany, the day on which Jesus Christ was baptized, and becomes practically invulnerable. By that time the unclean forces are in retreat, be as it may, the unclean days mark this period of transition, they are genuinely connected with the New Year. What you should put on the table is banitsa with good luck charms, bread with a coin inside – luck will go to the person who picks the piece with the coin inside. The cornel tree buds that go into the banitsa as good-luck charms – each one of them carries a specific message, encoded in the cornel twig.

 There is also the fortune-telling by reading walnuts – the nut and the shell. Depending on what the nut inside is like – that is what the year will be like for the person in question. There was one more way to tell fortunes in olden times – by reading onion skins. Twelve onion skins would be filled with salt, and each would represent a month of the year. They would be left with the salt inside overnight, and each skin would be examined in the morning to see if it has dissolved or if it has remained dry – that would show which month would be humid and which – dry.”

• Survachka - the magic wand of Bulgarians

Some of the old traditions and rituals have come down to us, but some are on their way out. One of them is connected with the night before the day of St. Basil (1 January). Maria Boyanova explains:

“It is important to say that on New Year’s night, 31^st December, a ritual begins which is called laduvane (it is also performed on other major feasts during the year – editorial note). The unmarried girls in the village would get together, and drop a ring, a bracelet or another item of jewellery into a container full of water. The receptacle would then be covered with a black piece of cloth and left overnight beneath a rose bush under the stars. 

On the morning of 1 January, a little girl would take the container of water – it had to be the last child born to the family – fish out the rings one by one and start making incantations – which girl would marry which boy.”

As the New Year set in, the survakari would start making the rounds of the village – wearing scary masks and making a loud noise as they clanged the bells they were carrying.

• Surva is the heart of Pernik and Pernik is the heart of Surva

“In our day, because of the change of calendar, the survakari come on the night of 13 January – they are in fact one of the precautions the community takes to ward off evil forces,” Maria Boyanova explains and goes on:

“Interest has grown of late in going back to old customs, beliefs and practices. You can tell by the books that have been released on the subject lately, even though not all of them can be considered a reliable source.”

Whatever the traditions and practices of the past, the New Year is almost upon us, so let us wish one another health and good fortune to all people in the world, wherever they may be!

• May you have a good life and health throughout the year and beyond!

Translated and posted by Milena Daynova
Photos: BTA, BGNES, BNR-Varna, etropole.bg, архив