Ognishte za nestinari

Worth a detour

Nestinarstvo — barefoot dancing on embers, carrying the icons of Sts Constantine and Helena — was inscribed by UNESCO in 2009 and survives as a living rite in exactly one village. Balgari has about a hundred people and on the third and fourth of June it has thousands. The hearth is here. On every other day of the year it is a circle of ash in a village with no shop.

Story

Background

UNESCO's inscription is specific: nestinarstvo, messages from the past, the panagyr of Saints Constantine and Helena in the village of Balgari. It notes that the rite was once celebrated in around thirty Bulgarian and Greek villages nearby and now survives in this one, and that thousands crowd the village for it, including in recent years many Greeks who take part.

The shape of the day, from the municipality's own programme, is worth knowing because visitors routinely get it wrong. On the third of June there is a traditional ceremony in the morning, films and a photographic exhibition at the information centre through the afternoon, a folklore programme at six, the official opening at half past seven, and the fire-dancing itself at about half past nine, in the dark. On the fourth there is a procession with the icons at ten in the morning to the holy spring and the shrine of St Helena, with drum and bagpipe. The konak by the village spring is where the festivals begin and end and where the sacred drum is kept.

One distinction to hold on to. Fire-walking is put on as dinner entertainment at seaside hotels up and down this coast. That is not nestinarstvo: the rite is tied to one date, two saints, a particular drum rhythm and a specific dance, and it belongs to a congregation. What you can see at Balgari is the real thing. What you can see with a folklore dinner in Sunny Beach is people walking on embers.