Lazarovden and Tsvetnitsa

Lazarovden (Лазаровден) is a Bulgarian holiday that is celebrated the Saturday before Palm Sunday, one week before Easter. Its a name day for people with the name Lazar, or any derivative of that, but that's an old name and you don't come across it often anymore. Mostly this holiday is for young women of marrying age; they dress in traditional clothing and sing and dance around at various houses and collect presents on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday morning the older ones dance the horo in the center and throw wreaths into the river, to be fished out by potential husbands.

Tsvetnitsa (Цветница) is the Bulgarian term for Palm Sunday but it actually means "flowers day". Anyone named after a flower, like Violeta who is one of the twin sisters of Dori and daughter of my landlady, has a name day. There are also Bulgarian Orthodox traditions since it is the Sunday before Easter. Everyone in the village goes to the church after the Lazaruvane dance in the center and donates some change for candles and willow branches. You light a candle on a tall stand for the health and happiness of living family members and friends, and one in a container on the floor for deceased family members. The willow branches you take with you and form into wreathes on the way down to the river. The Lazaruvane dance again, this time along with the eligible male bachelors, and you throw the wreathes in the river.

I celebrated all this with my Bulgarian family that I celebrated Christmas with; Stoika, Dori, Violeta, Niki, and Stella. Violeta gave me some chocolate in the morning in honor of her name day before we left for Kozichino to celebrate on Sunday morning. Kozichino is the village where Stoika was born and still has a godfather and some cousins. Its about a 2 hour drive from Avren and we took a windy old back road as a shortcut looking for a special flower in the woods.

I had camera difficulties about the time we got to the river, my battery died, but I have some pictures from before that. 

Meeting in the morning at the restaurant before the official festivities

Warm up dance

Pony

Playing around at the restaurant

Heading into the center

Procession through town

Getting ready to dance

Singing

Dori and Violeta joined in the dance

Dori leaving the church and heading to the river

At the river enjoying the view

Niki watching the Lazaruvane walk down

Lazaruvane

Stella and the stream