RIBNOVO, Bulgaria (Reuters) – Fikrie Sabrieva, 17, will marry along with her eyes shut along with her face painted white, dotted with bright sequins. She lives ‘at the finish of this world’, tending A muslim that is hardy culture mostly Christian Bulgaria.
Kids view the marriage ceremony of Moussa Babechki and Fikrie Sabrieva into the town of Ribnovo, within the Rhodope Mountains, some 210km (130miles) south of Sofia January 13, 2008. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
The remote town of Ribnovo, set on get more a snowy mountainside in southwest Bulgaria, has held its conventional cold temperatures wedding service alive despite decades of Communist persecution, followed closely by poverty that forced lots of men to get work abroad.
“Other nearby villages tried the marriage that is traditional the ban had been lifted, then again the custom somehow died away — ladies wanted become contemporary,” said Ali Mustafa Bushnak, 61, whoever child arrived to look at Fikrie’s wedding.
“Maybe our company is at the conclusion associated with globe. Or individuals in Ribnovo are particularly spiritual and proud of the traditions.”
Some specialists state clinging to your old-fashioned marriage ceremony is Ribnovo’s reply to the persecutions of history.
Bulgaria could be the European that is only Union where Muslims’ share can be high as 12 %. The regime that is communist which failed to tolerate any spiritual rituals, tried to forcibly integrate Muslims into Bulgaria’s mostly Christian Orthodox populace, pushing them to abandon putting on their old-fashioned outfits and adopt Slavonic names.
The marriage ritual had been resurrected with vitality among the list of Pomaks — Slavs whom transformed into Islam under Ottoman guideline and make up 2.5 now per cent of Bulgaria’s 7.8 million populace — after communism collapsed in 1989.
But today it’s still performed just into the society that is closed of and another other village within the Balkan nation. Young men get back from abroad into the crisp mountain snows, only for the wintertime weddings.
Individuals in Ribnovo identify on their own more by their faith, as Muslims, than by their nationality or ethnicity, while the wedding party is a manifestation of the piety. The town has 10 clerics and two mosques for 3,500 inhabitants.
DOWRY ON DISPLAY
Fikrie’s family members have now been laboriously turning up her dowry since she was created — mostly handmade knit-work, quilts, coverlets, sheets, aprons, socks, floor coverings.
On a sunny Saturday cold weather early morning they hang the things on a scaffolding that is wooden 50 meters very very long and three meters high, erected particularly for the occasion in the high, dirty road of scruffy two-storey homes that leads to her home.
Most people into the town involves examine the offerings: Fikrie’s tiny homeyard has been changed into a showroom when it comes to household and furniture devices the bride needs to offer her brand brand new home.
The girl along with her husband-to-be, Moussa, 20, then lead a horo that is traditional on the central square, accompanied by the majority of the village’s youth.
However the highlight associated with ceremony, the artwork regarding the bride’s face, comes at the conclusion associated with day that is second.
In a rite that is private and then feminine in-laws, Fikrie’s face is covered in dense, chalky white paint and decorated with colorful sequins. A lengthy veil that is red her locks, her mind is framed with tinsel, her painted face veiled with and silvery filaments.
Clad in baggy jeans and bodice shimmering in most the colors associated with the rainbow, the bride is presented by her husband to be, her mom along with her grandmother to your crowd that is waiting.
Fikrie is certainly not allowed to open her eyes wide until a Muslim priest blesses the couple that is young. Liquor is forbidden during the wedding receptions and intercourse before wedding is taboo.
BANNED RITUALS
Ethnographers state it really is hard to date the painting that is bridal, given that communist regime failed to encourage studies into minority cultural and spiritual teams.
“It is extremely most most likely it is a tradition that is invented. An associate professor at the Ethnography Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Science it’s their way to express who they are,” said Margarita Karamihova.
Specialists state Pomaks had identification dilemmas and encountered more challenges as compared to majority of Muslims in Bulgaria, who will be ethnic Turks.
“In the 1960s they might ban Islamic music at weddings, chances are they wouldn’t normally enable conventional clothing, plus in the 1980s, the complete conventional Pomak wedding had been prohibited,” said municipality mayor, Ahmed Bashev, born in Ribnovo.
Ribnovo’s inhabitants utilized to create an income from tobacco and farming, but low incomes within the poorest EU country forced men to begin searching for jobs in metropolitan areas in Bulgaria or in western Europe — maybe maybe not minimum to improve cash for a marriage.
Outside impacts have already been sluggish to achieve Ribnovo and young adults seldom marry an outsider. Another Fikrie, 19-year-old Fikrie Inuzova, advised the ladies, for who the appropriate age that is bridal as much as 22, are not pretty quickly to modernize.
“My sibling wants to visit, look at globe. It’s different for guys. They could do any. I would like to remain right right here and marry.”
