The smell of roses
Yesterday was the annual Rose Festival’s culmination; a parade down the main street of Kazanlak, a wonderful market with all sorts of artisan knick knacks, rowdy, loud music, grinning revellers, ladies and men and boys and girls all dressed up to the nines in traditional costume sprinkling petals everywhere
The famous donkey slippers
In Bulgarian villages you’re simply not taken seriously if you don’t wear your terlitsi – traditional hand-knitted wool slippers.
Rose Valley lives
The elders remain, tending their plants amid inevitable decline as their neighbours die off and houses stand empty. But already, there is something starting here. Young families are beginning to come back to villages and rural areas. There is hope…
