Traditional Nestinarstvo fire-dancing ritual held in Balgari

The village of Balgari located in Strandzha Mountain hosted the traditional fire-dancing ritual Nestinarstvo, BNR’s correspondent in Burgas Daniela Kostadinova reported. More than 1,000 Bulgarian and foreign tourists from Israel, Greece, Türkiye, Ukraine and Japan watched the fire-dancing ritual.

To the sound of Marin Goleminov’s dance drama “Nestinarka”, three men and two women performed the beautiful ritual on glowing embers that has turned the small village into a center of Nestinar tradition in Bulgaria. As tradition dictates, they danced holding icons of Saints Constantine and Helena. The two saints are the patron saints of the village, and both the church and the chapel are named after them. The celebration was accompanied by performances from the folklore ensemble “Tundzha”.

Edited by Diana Tsankova

Translated by Kostadin Atanasov