The whole idea of having to sell and buy girls and women is of course completely unacceptable from a politically correct standpoint. Nonetheless, the Brides’ Fair at Mogila seldom leads to a real “deal” of the kind. It really is nonetheless really colourful, great deal of enjoyable and a must-see for visitors and residents of southern Bulgaria.

The young Gypsy girls choose Western-style clothing

Every Todorovden, or St Todor’s Day, Gypsies through the Kalaydzhii clan collect regarding the football that is muddy associated with town of Mogila, near Stara Zagora. Extended families arrive from all over in ramshackle automobiles ranging from horse-drawn carts to.

Many of them started to fulfill buddies and relatives. The Kalaydzhii are itinerant craftsmen who reside in little, crowded communities when you look at the villages around Pazardzhik, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora and Karnobat, and invest the hot months travelling across the nation hunting for trade. They hold two primary gatherings per year – on 15 August, the feast associated with the presumption, near Bachkovo Monastery, and also at the Brides’ Fair on Todorovden, a moveable feast regarding the Saturday that is first of.

Moustached and dressed up in their traditional three-piece suits, bowler hats or fabric caps on the minds, the old men to use tables near the shining barbecues where sweaty vendors grill kebapcheta, chatting with buddies and consuming beer. Their wives munch sunflower seeds and gossip with family members, as the children set you back and fro with ukraine date cheeks pink from candyfloss and hands sticky from toffee oranges.

The traditional attire is kept with their grandmothers

The Brides’ Fair, nonetheless, is a lot more than simply a grouped community get-together. The Kalaydzhii, like the majority of Gypsy clans in Bulgaria, choose marriages to happen between people of the team. Their vagabond (no pun meant) lives, nonetheless, allow it to be burdensome for young adults to satisfy a partner, ergo the fair – a huge, colourful, crowded meeting of “available” girls and teenage boys.

Objectives are high. The men’ families have actually arrived at find a new, gorgeous, hard-working, obedient and bride that is preferably virgin. Girls’ families have actually appeared to produce at the entire community exactly how young, stunning, hard-working, obedient and – of course! – virtuous their daughters and grand-daughters are, and also to find for them a decent lad, ideally with a small business of his very own.

Young men in brand brand brand new jeans and hoodies or inside their track suits that are best, that are extremely popular now in the united kingdom regardless of ethnicity of these wearers, stroll all over pitch in tiny packages. They scan the girls, trade commentary on the appearance and do their better to look cool, strutting like roosters prepared for the fight and sunflower that is spitting with hauteur, as though they owned the entire world.

Girls and their own families are a lot more remarkable.

Gypsies from all colors and hues start thinking about beauty to include fair epidermis, red cheeks and blue eyes, and also the girls during the fair try everything feasible to appear their utmost. Straight away on arrival, they placed on their makeup products of hefty eyeliner and a layer that is thick of powder. Bold sectors of red lipstick on the cheeks perform the design.

Several distinctive Gypsy clans are now living in Bulgaria. Kalaydzhii make residing as itinerant tinkers and cattle dealers

Most of the smile that is brides-to-be, with the exception of the rich people that are more large so that you can showcase their gold teeth, a vintage Roma icon of prosperity, frequently used onto healthier teeth. Girls avoid speaking with strangers rather than talk about the information on a feasible wedding. This task is kept in the possession of of the grandmothers, the negotiators that are official the bride company. Short and squat, the elderly ladies are clad into the old-fashioned dress for the Kalaydzhii – vivid green, red or blue velvet skirts and white headscarves with red plants. The older generation still wears this attire even yet in everyday activity and, until recently, girls at it was worn by the Fair, too. But times are changing, even yet in this conservative community, and today most of the future brides dress like aspiring chalga divas, miniskirts and backcombed locks included.