site.btaSt George's Day: a Special Festive Occasion for Yakoruda

While quite a few countries mark the Feast Day of St George by a series of observances and rituals, May 6 is one of the most important days of the year for Yakoruda, a small town huddled between Mt Rila, the Rhodopi Mountains and Mt Pirin.

St George's Day here is celebrated on May 5 and 6 by lots of folk traditions, singing and dancing. This year, too, at noon on May 5 women hung their hand-made traditional Balkan rugs from their balconies or fences and donned traditional costumes, creating a colourful and festive atmosphere.

A unique ritual called "drinking the belezi" was performed on the eve of the holiday. In it, a young girl from each house with both parents living is expected to place a small bunch of flowers (called belezi), tied with a red string, into a large water-filled clay pot (called kyup) which sits under a multiflora rose plant. The bunch is left there overnight, and in the morning each family comes back to fetch theirs and fix it on their door for good health.

Just as every year, the May 5 festivities culminated in a folk music concert in the town square with lots of traditional dancing.

Another massive music-filled celebration followed on May 6, in a meadow beside the nearly St George's Church. Traditionally, quite a few locals and guests reach the location by horse-drawn carries, wearing traditional clothing and singing folk songs.

A kurban tradition is observed in the meadow. At St George's day, lambs donated by townspeople are usually slaughtered for this purpose as a sacrifice for health or in memory of a deceased person, and the cooked meat is given away to those present. This year, however, the kurban meal was fish because the holiday falls on a Friday for which the Orthodox Church prescribes non-meat fare.

The event is largely unknown outside Yakoruda and mostly locals attend it, but in recent years outsiders have come to appreciate its uniqueness and authenticity, and they arrive expressly for the occasion by the picturesque narrow-gouge train. 

Yakoruda has a large Muslim population, and this year the Orthodox Easter, Ramadan and St George's Day were celebrated almost back-to-back, enabling the multi-ethnic community to demonstrate its rich diversity.