School for Lazarki Girls

Lazrovden is celebrated on the eighth day before Easter. According to the folk tradition, the holiday is also called Lazar, Lazaritsa or Lazarus Saturday and was among the most important ones in the calendar of Bulgarians dedicated to love and fertility. Only girls aged from10 to 16 years were eligible to take part in the custom performed on this day. Since Lazaruvane was a rite of initiation, girls having passed through it, came of marriage age, had the right to dress up, put on embroidered shirts and claim a status of potential brides.
According to olden beliefs "a girl who has failed to take part in Lazaruvane is not a maiden" and "a maiden, who has not been to Lazaruvane, cannot join working bees and eventually get married."

The preparation for the performance of the custom of Lazaruvane began in the "middle of Lent" or in the middle of the Easter Lent. For more than three weeks, girls gathered and learned Lazarus songs and dances.

This tradition was revived at the Etar Museum in 2010 by way of the School for Lazarki Girls educational program. The initiative has already had thirteen editions, and the interest of young girls to join it has been growing by the year.

The first edition of the School for Lazarki Girls included a dozen girls aged from 13 to 16. In 2019, more than 30 girls graduated from the school, and the re-enactments of the Lazaruvane custom at the museum were expected with great excitement by visitors. Since 2022, interest in the initiative has grown to an extent that girls from Dryanovo and Tryavna have also joined it.

The purpose of the educational program is to introduce participants to the custom of Lazaruvane and to let them experience the authenticity of the feast. The young girls are introduced to the symbolism of Lazarus Saturday; they learn ritual songs and dances, and participate in a re-enactment of the custom. It is traditionally held at the Etar Museum on Lazarus Saturday itself.

The girls are dressed in Gabrovo costumes, wearing on their heads wreaths made by themselves, and holding baskets decorated with flowers in their hands. In front of the numerous visitors to the museum, the Lazarki girls pass by and bless with dances and songs the houses along the Craftsman Street. The artisans are an integral part of the ritual acting as house owners.

Traditionally, green willow branches are cut on Lazarus Saturday, which are consecrated in church on the following day – Palm Sunday, also called Vrabnitsa. It is believed that consecrated willow branches protect the whole family and are therefore kept until next spring.

Usually, the last from the Lazaruvane rites, i.e. "kumichene", is performed on Palm Sunday. In the morning, the Lazarki girls are off to the river where they drop simultaneously their wreaths made of willow twigs. The girl whose wreath comes ahead of the rest is nominated as kumitsa and it is believed that she will be the first to get married during the year.

For diligence demonstrated during the feast, the graduates of our educational program School for Lazarki Girls receive a Maiden Certificate implying they are now fit to get married.