from spartacus to krum the new 359: Тодоровден and the Iditarod

At the beginning of March I took a trip to Southeastern Bulgaria, up into the rural mountain villages of Bachevo and Gorno Dryanovo. Bachevo sits on the cusp of 3 out of the 4 mountain ranges in Bulgaria; the Rila, Pirin and Rhodope. In this village on Todorovden; the day of Sveti Teodor (St. Theodore) and the name day for people named Todor or Todorka, there is a grand spectacle horse race. I arrived from Sofia around noon and meet the local volunteers from the area who had been there all day and we all hiked up a big hill to where the track was set up, a long strip of melted snowy mud.

walking to the track

There were a few food tables with grilled pork and drinks and picnic tables set up. It was definitely something people travel to see and a lot of people, more then I thought there would be. This year Todorovden was also the 3rd of March, Liberation Day from the Ottoman Empire ending 482 years of occupation, and as with all traditional Bulgarian there were lots of people in traditional Bulgarian dress. This time that included the horses.

warrior pose, thats a spear

red and white horse pompom

The race was split into brackets for different levels, we assume, but there was no announcing so it was a bit hard to follow. However, a girl did win so yay us!!

racing horses

made me want to going skiing really bad

relaxation spot

Afterward I traveled further south, in the companionship of the great Katie Leu to Gurman to meet up with Tracy to go back up into the mountains to Gorno Dryanovo to do some lessons on the Iditarod at the local school. I had the idea to do some lessons at the school in my village about the Iditarod since dog sledding is virtually unknown here and I thought the kids would find it interesting. Tracy is from Alaska so we teamed up and did it together in her village first since she could get materials sent from home. It went over well, we had brochures, coloring pages and word searches all Iditarod themed. I also downloaded the movie Iron Will dubbed over in Bulgarian since its all about dog racing and we watched it after school. I spent only two days there before I had to leave to head back home, which is very far. We spent the night in Gurman with Katie so I could get an early bus back to Sofia, and then on to Varna. Katie made lasagna noodles from scratch and we had the best lasagna I have had in at least two years, maybe more.