#кукери

[elizadraws]

Kuker

Kuker 👺👹

source

[rosie-does-art]

KUKERI

[bloodbecomeswater]

Последните дни за BEAST!

Не пропускайте възможността да разгледате завладяващите текстилни произведения на Rosie Eisor в галерия КО-ОП, София. Изложбата е отворена за посетители до 28-ми юли (неделя), 19:00 ч.!

📸 Михаил Новаков

*Изложбата се осъществява с подкрепата на Национален фонд "Култура".

[wseobg]

Да опознаем България

Кукерите

Повече вижте на www.SharenaCherga.com

[tbhimnoteasyonmyself]

Guys, have I ever introduced you to Кирил (Kiril)?

He's a кукер (kuker) doll I bought in the сурва (surva) festival this year!

He protects my room now and is one of my most dear possessions.

And, most importantly, he's a cutie 💜

[seeninbulgaria]

Ликувайте по сурва! Снимки от Международен фестивал на маскарадните игри - Сурва Перник 2016

International Festival of the Masquerade Games Pernik - 2016

Сурва Перник,Перник Кукери,Сурвакари Перник,Драгичево,Сурва Перник 2016

Много снимки и видеа виджте на www.Kukeri.net

[bulgara]

Kukeri (Bulgarian: кукери; singular: kuker, кукер) are elaborately costumed Bulgarian men, who perform traditional rituals intended to scare away evil spirits.

[wodeworm]

Pilgrims of the Long Night - Winter Solstice Dragons

Right to left

36 Little Sheshkertoo

Origin: Schnabelperchten “Schnabel” meaning beak, and "Perchten" is the plural form of Perchta, and "Schnabelperchten" means “Beaked Perchtas”. In folklore, Perchta upholds cultural taboos and rewards those who abide by tradition, and slits open the stomachs of those who misbehaved.

37 Knishkuulsho

origin: Kukeri (Bulgarian: кукери; singular: kuker, кукер) are elaborately costumed Bulgarians , who perform traditional rituals intended to scare away evil spirits.

38 Ruhelsh bon

origin: Mari Lwyd, meaning 'Grey Mare', a horse-figure carried from door to door by wassail-singing groups during the Winter season.

[chanarie69]

THE KIOSK OF DEMOCRACY PRESENTS "KUKERI" A series "Kukeri (Bulgarian: кукери) are elaborately costumed Bulgarian men and sometimes women, who perform different dances and jump in arcane rituals intended to dispel the bad energy between people." By Mihaela Mihaylova - Bulgaria www.facebook.com/kioskofdemocracy/

Mihaela Mihaylova ©

[doubtspirit]

Bulgarian kukeri (кукери) mask

Bulgaria’s kukeri dancers don dramatic costumes to dispel evil and invite good. The ritual is a public one, profoundly ancient, full of spectacle and metaphor. Around early winter or midwinter, groups of kukeri (кукери: pronounced KOO-kuh-ree) don elaborate costumes—complete with fantastical masks and belts of massive metal bells—and accompany musicians throughout the village, dancing rhythmically to drive away evil and invite good.

[balkanche]

Bulgarian kukeri

[bay-did-nothing-wrong]

“The Enchanted Stallion” 2016 The Magic Behind the Scenes

Okay, so I just watched “The Enchanted Stallion” on Netflix and I have to say.....

I FEEL ROBBED!!!

At the beginning everything’s fine. A teenage girl with a lonely disabled father living off of what the girl could make. She works hard even on Christmas Eve, classic tragic storyline. Then this horse comes out of nowhere and she is suddenly thrown into a magical place. To the ordinary spectator the landscape does look magical indeed, simply because it doesn’t exist. Think again...

As the girl goes on following the horse we,the viewers, are exposed to amazing mystic sights, the first of which is an ancient-lookng steep medieval bridge.

Pretty, right?

But wait! Doesn’t it look familiar?

Yea, it does. This is called Devil’s Bridge (Bul.: Дяволски мост) and is an arc bridge over Arda river situated near Ardino, Bulgaria. The bridge has a ton of legends already running around its name even before the film.

At first though you think nothing of it. I mean, there are thousands of bridges like that around the world, right? This couldn’t be that one bridge. Right?

Then, as the protagonist and the horse travel through the thick forests they reach a strange whole in the ground that glows and sparkles. Well, that’s probably the only time where the crew threw in some creativity. As the heroine goes down that whole we notice she isn’t just going down a muddy foresty floor towards the bottom of a bottomless whole. No, she is going down a nice stony staircase that seemed to be waiting just for her.

“Wait a second! I’ve seen that somewhere!” Yup, This is the satircase that leads to the antechamber of Magura cave (Bul.:Магурата), close to Rabisha village, Bulgaria.

“Okay, but everything that happened inside the cave was still very creative, so stfu!” Well, no. The cave drawings:

weren’t their idea at all. In fact, they were already there when the producers and crews came.

 All they had to do was add some motion.

“Okay, so what? A bridge and a cave? That’s all? Don’t be petty!”

Petty, I am, but still that’s not the only thing the creators of The Enchanted Stallion DIDN’T have to worry about.

I’m not just talking about the beatiful forests that Bulgarian nature provides,

I mean what follows after.

Alright, so this girl meets a strangely-agressive woman, they talk, confront each other, yada yada yada. Honestly, that part could have been scripted better but who am I to judge?

So, on we go.

The two young women travel through the fresh green forests on the beautiful black stallion to complete their quest when they encounter something strange.

These:

The redheaded woman calls them “Kukri”. Weird name, right? Yeah, becaue it’s made up.

What they’re actually called is kukeri (Bul.: кукери) and they aren’t just weird-shaped hairy beings that just walk around the forest in packs, they’re actually people dressed in those scary costumes as a way to scare off evil spirits.

(ignore the goat at the top right corner, Peter just wanted to be a part of something)

As you’ve already guessed, that’s a pagan Bulgarian tradition and it’s existed for a very ling time before The Enchanted Stallion.

Okay, moving on.

So, our group of two becomes a group of three and on they march to fnd the magical portal to a sorceress’ dwelling. They find themselves in a very pretty, very unique cave,

searching for eyes. Now that’s a weird move, right? What is that supposed to mean? Another set of drawings perhaps?

Nuh-uh, literally the eyes of the cave,

that light the way to the secret portal.

Okay, so I haven’t fact-checked that but I am pretty sure that there are only so many caves that have eyes and one of them is called Devetashka cave (Bul.:Деветашка пещера), just outside of Letnitsa, Bulgaria. 

I’m not going to dwell on that too much, I’m just going to move on.

So, shit spirals from there on. There are those four crazy ladies that turn into one that turns out to be the powerful sorceress they were looking for and she kindly gives them one of the four artefacts they were looking for. As the two girls hold the artefact in their hands they are hit by visions that hold the answers to their questions.

As the teenage American protagonst holds it in her hands she sees the spectacular view of a waterfall in a forest where she plays around in the crystal clears blue water.

Magical!

Nooope, that’s real too.

Those are the Krushuna Waterfalls (Bul.: Крушунските водопади), in Krushuna, Bulgaria. They truly are a magical sight to see, I’ll tell you that. And before you consider it, nope, there is no Photoshop used, no filters or any other form of editing done to those pictures, the water is trully this clear and blue.

Okay, so what? They used a few waterfalls and caves for ideas. There’s nothing wrong with that! At leat everything else is original, right?

The other girl, she sees a castle, an old, abandoned-looking castle in the middle of another forest,

 which, after some time, her and her ompanions reach.

Now that SURELY must be made up.

BUT it isn’t.

This is called the Baba Vida (Bul.: Баба Вида) or the Vidin Fortress (Видинска крепост), “ a medieval fortress in Vidin in northwestern Bulgaria and the town's primary landmark”, says Wikipedia.  

And while wandering around to find the place they accidently pass by another amazingly-mysterious structure,

that is left unnamed in the film.

That is another great fortress in Bulgaria named Belogradchik fortress (Bul.:Белоградчишка крепост) near Belogradchik.

Later in the film after the evil general is defeated and the peaceful race is free to live above the surface again, the extras used as the general folk of said race (who, by the way, look so disoriented in their roles that they are probably Bulgarian too) leave the open passage of what seems to be a basement.

That is the underground chamber of forementioned Baba Vida Fortress.

And then at the final, we see mother and daughter part in front of another breath-taking piece of landscape,

that had also appeared earlier into the film.

Now, those are the Belogradchik rocks (Bul.:Белоградчишки скали) and are a major Bulgarian pride-carrier. 

Soooooo, after this educational talk I want to explain the moral of this whole post. I donn’t, in any way, to disrespect the directors’, crews’ or actors’ work, on the contrary, I very much enjoyed watching the film, the screenplay was a bit cheap but it was nice, nontheless.

What I mean to say is that Bulgaria is such a magical and wonderful place that one only has to come, set up a camera and start recording, no CGI or special effects needed. What I meant by “I FEEL ROBBED!!!” is that none of the locations and landmarks are credited and the IMDb page of the film says “Country of Origin: USA, Bulgaria” even though only a few of the scenes are shot in the States and a handful of the actors are American.

That is all I wanted to say...

[bulgara]

Добре дошли в България! Ние тук не вярваме в приказки - създаваме ги! Не вярваме в супергерои - създаваме ги! Не ни е страх от злото - плашим го! 👹 🎥 Welcome to Bulgaria! Here, we don`t believe in fairy tails - we create them! We don`t believe in superheroes - we create them! We don`t fear EVIL - we fight it!

[blagoevgrad]

Симитлия 2022

[trip-my-life]