Gelina: The Secret World of Ribnovo Weddings

We depart from Plovdiv and Sofia and head to the village of Skrebatno, where we will try traditional local dishes, including sarmi and the so-called gypsy pie stuffed with vine leaves. We will attend the gelina ritual – this is the name of the bride decorated with colored stones in the Bulgarian-Mohammedan villages in the region of Ribnovo. The emphasis throughout the ceremony is on her. Older women prepare her for the wedding ritual by painting her face with white cream, makeup, and checkers. The white veil was replaced by a red veil, to which garlands were added. While gelina goes to her new home, she walks with her eyes closed and wears a mirror. The idea is not to look at others but to look only in the mirror to be proud of your beauty. In the afternoon we go to a wedding in Ribnovo and together with the wedding guests, we will go to the local community center, where the bride’s gifts are shown on the stage in front of the whole village. Then we will join in the fun on the square with music and lots of dancing. We will look at the authentic local textiles – hand-woven aprons called sofra, vests, and anthers worn by young girls, black velvet coats called veils worn by married women, patterned embroidered socks. Local women will greet us dressed in red and cyclamen trousers, belted with hand-decorated aprons, with hair covered with towels called tulbe. They will wear a knitted kondak, the mantle will be made of black velvet, and everything will be strewn with sequins, pearls, and glittering stones.

After breakfast, our program continues with a walk to Leshten and Kovachevitsa – two villages that seem to come from the tales of the XVIII century. The first Bulgarians settled in Kovachevitsa since the liquidation of the Tarnovo Kingdom (1393). Here was built the first cell school in Nevrokopsko, completed in 1820. One of the symbols of Kovachevitsa is the church “St. Nicholas ”- the most valuable monument of spirituality in the whole region. The church was built at the request of a local merchant, who managed to find recognition only in the sultan’s court in Constantinople as a skilled barber. He was approached by his fellow villagers to help issue a permit, as it was extremely difficult to build a new church at the time. He managed to beg the sultan to issue a decree for the construction of a temple. The only requirement is not to be tall, so as not to be seen from afar. The photos of over 20 foreign and Bulgarian productions were taken in Kovachevitsa, including “Men’s Times”. Kovachevitsa houses are solid stone buildings with masonry that we can not see anywhere else. But Leshten – the other treasure of the Rhodopes, also did not yield to the beauty of architecture. The view of the houses perched on the steep slopes of the mountain, built in the Kovachev architectural style, is exceptional. They still keep in themselves the true spirit of the Bulgarian village.
We will participate in a workshop and cooking class for kneading and rolling out an authentic Western Rhodope pastry.Then we will go for a wine tasting at the elegant spa complex “Uva Nestum”. The highlight of the tasting will be the blend between Rubin and Merlot, made from grapes from their own fields. The wine has an intensely preserved ruby ​​color, a powerful nose with hints of blackcurrant, dry leaves, musk, and smoke, a dense body with healthy ripe tannins and hints of black elderberry and chocolate, and a long, spicy finish.