New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve is celebrated throughout the world but there is nothing to be compared to the splendid Bulgarian custom of ringing out the old year and welcoming the new one with the typical wish New Year – New Luck. A lot of traditional dishes are cooked for the festal dinner as the most Bulgarian one is banitsa with pieces of lucks – the new year banitsa is a baked rolled out cheese and butter dish. There is a piece of the banitsa for each guest where he would find his piece of luck – a wish for health, happiness, and success in the year to come. After the noisy and cheerful welcoming of the New Year here comes the day of St. Vasilii the Great– Vasiliovden. This holiday is featured with the typical Bulgarian habit, popular throughout the country, survakane. It resembles a ritual wish of health by the touch of survachka – a fresh and decorated cornel stick. Its decoration, often representing the region’s main occupation, is really variegated – interlaced twigs, string of pop corn, different woolen threads, small ring-shaped buns, etc. It is the name day of everyone called Vasil, Vasilena, Vesela, Veselin, Valcho.