site.btaPreparations for St Stephen's Day Begin at Sunrise, Says Chief Curator at Vratsa Regional History Museum

Silvia Garvanska, chief curator in the Ethnography Department at the Vratsa Regional History Museum, told BTA on Friday about the customs and traditions on St Stephen's Day in Bulgaria.

At sunrise, the woman of the house would get up and start preparing the typical dishes for the holiday: cabbage rolls, braised pork and cabbage, and banitsa meat pie. Between Christmas and New Year's Eve, people used to visit and celebrate many name days, Garvanska added. "All these holidays are connected with bread, the family, festive dishes, and visitors. Those days fall mostly in winter, when the economic year was over and women would be weaving, sewing and embroidering, while men would look after the farm animals," she said.

One of the games that entertained children during the holidays involved a full bowl of flour with a coin in it. The children had to blow away the flour and find the coin. Another game saw them rolling and wrestling in straw, always in one direction - so that there would be heavy ears of wheat in the summer.

A lot of fortune-telling took place at that time. Each member of the family would take a walnut from the table and the oldest woman would then tell their fortune. If the kernel inside looked good, there would be good health in the home, Garvanska said.

In Vratsa Municipality, 258 men named Stefan, 12 women named Stefanka and 19 women Stefania are celebrating their name day this year, the municipal administration said.